This is a demonstration of the benefits that can occur when negotiators exchange information, beyond the standard model in game theory, and use the information they learn about each other to make proposals benefitting both sides. In this demonstration Players A and B are negotiating, given functions and constraints which determine their utiltities at various points. During this game A and B try to settle on a proposal of variables (m, n). But as can be seen in the individual functions, the players' utilities depend on many other variables.
At the beginning of the game, none of these dependencies are known; as the
players learn more about each other and about which of their own variables
and constraints need to be modified to increase utility for a given (m, n),
suggestions that the player or the other player change such variables,
representing "side payments", follow. In the beginning, the individual
variables of the two players are set at initial values which generate the
initial values in the utility matricies, which represent utility values for
all (m, n) in a given range. The utilities are then scaled between 0 and
1000. When the player varies his other variables in an attempt to maximize
utility at a given (m, n), the utility changes, and all other values in the
matrix are rescaled to range between 1 and 1000.
The dots in the smaller pop-up window represent points being visited when
the player changes values for certain variables in the attempt to increase
utility at a given (m, n). The red lines represent constraints, which may
later be presented to the other player, who might explore possibilities of
relaxing those constraints.
Note: On (hopefully) rare occasions, a message of "Document contains no data" will appear. This means that you will need to reload the page manually until the data appears (don't worry, the data will almost certainly appear eventually). The process is just very slow, and the pages are constantly being updated. Once data appears in a window, however, the page will reload itself every 10 seconds.
Also, this demo works only with browsers such as Netscape 3.0 or higher which support Java and JavaScript and can display frames.