Recently, a buzzer quiz has become popular and the number of theoretical studies about a quiz has also increased in various fields such as computer science and linguistics. A buzzer quiz is related not only to responders’ knowledge (known/unknown) but also to many psychological aspects such as competition, judgments under uncertainty, and strategy changes. However, there are no behavioral studies on a buzzer quiz and thus no behavioral data-based evidence has been obtained so far. In this paper, we analyzed quiz players’ behaviors in a Japanese quiz competition in terms of behavioral science. We quantified “uncertainty” of information for solving a quiz, and investigated tendencies of players’ judgments for pushing a button depending on the extent of pressures of wrong answers. We found that players often pushed a button even when a correct answer was not specified uniquely, and that players tended to obtain more information in situations where no more wrong answers were allowed. In addition, it is suggested that although players were required to make faster judgments, taking more information as possible would be a good strategy in a buzzer quiz. This study provides the first behavioral evidence and will be a scaffolding for new understandings of human judgments under uncertainty in a buzzer quiz.
