Handbook of Experimental Game Theory

This paper surveys the experimental literature on communication of private information via cheap-talk messages. Some players have private information that is relevant to the decisions made by others. The informed players have the option to send messages before decisions are made. Messages do not directly affect payoffs but can link decisions to information. This simple paradigm has been found useful in philosophy, linguistics, economics, political science and theoretical biology. The survey tracks the dialogue between the theory and experiments that have been inspired by this paradigm and is organized around the themes of available language, payoff structure and compositions of the sets of communicating players.