Fig. 1.

Schematic of the design space of lab experiments. Whereas many real-world social processes and phenomenon involve large numbers of people interacting in complex ways over long time intervals (days to years), physical lab experiments are generally constrained to studying individuals or small groups interacting in relatively simple ways over short time intervals (e.g., less than 1 h). The potential of virtual lab experiments is that, in relaxing some of the constraints associated with in-person experiments, they can expand the accessible design space for social, behavioral, and economic experiments