The various input formats can be compared based in terms of implicit utilitarian voting – how much each input-format is useful in maximizing the sum of utilities.
Goel, Krishnaswamy, Sakshuwong and Aitamurto[6] report the results of several experiments done on real PB systems in Boston (2015–2016), Cambridge (2014–2015), Vallejo (2015) and New York City (2015).
Their main findings are: Later experiments lead to different conclusions: Benade, Itzhak, Shah, Procaccia and Gal[7] compared input formats on two dimensions: efficiency (social welfare of the resulting outcomes), and usability (cognitive burden on the voters).
Their goal was to maximize social welfare by using observed votes as proxies for voters’ unknown underlying utilities.
Fairstein, Benade and Gal[8] report the results of an experiment with Amazon Turk workers, on a PB process in an imaginary town.
Yang, Hausladen, Peters, Pournaras, Fricker and Helbing[10] constructed an experiment modeled over the PB process in Zurich.