Effectiveness of the quantum-mechanical formalism in cognitive modeling

Abstract

Traditional approaches to cognitive psychology are founded on a classical vision of logic and probability theory. According to this perspective, the probabilistic aspects of human reasoning can be formalized in a Kolmogorovian probability framework and reveal underlying Boolean-type logical structures. This vision has been seriously challenged by various discoveries in experimental psychology in the last three decades. Meanwhile, growing research indicates that quantum theory provides the conceptual and mathematical framework to deal with these classically problematical situations. In this paper, we apply a general quantum-based modeling scheme to represent two types of cognitive situations where deviations from classical probability occur in human decisions, namely, 'conceptual categorization' and 'decision making'. We show that our quantum-theoretic modeling faithfully describes different sets of experimental data, explaining the observed deviations from classicality in terms of genuine quantum effects. These results may contribute to the development of applied disciplines where cognitive processes are involved, such as natural language processing, semantic analysis, and information retrieval.

Quantum Structure in Cognition: Human Language as a Boson Gas of Entangled Words

“…In this we will also be inspired by the global foundational work we have done in our Brussels group (Aerts, 1986(Aerts, , 1990(Aerts, , 1999(Aerts, , 2009bAerts et al, 2010Aerts et al, , 2012Aerts et al, , 2018aAerts et al, , 2019aAerts, Broekaert & Gabora, 2011;Aerts & Gabora, 2005a,b;Aerts & Sassoli de Bianchi, 2014, 2017Aerts, Sassoli de Bianchi & Sozzo, 2016;Aerts & Sozzo, 2011Aerts, Sozzo & Veloz, 2015aSassoli de Bianchi, 2011Sozzo, 2014Sozzo, , 2015Sozzo, , 2017Sozzo, , 2019Veloz, Zhao & Aerts, 2013;Veloz & Dujardin, 2015), and by the more specific work on the 'conceptuality interpretation' (Aerts, 2009a(Aerts, , 2010a(Aerts, ,b, 2013(Aerts, , 2014Aerts et al, 2018dAerts et al, , 2019c. To mention a concrete aspect in need of a more foundational approach, there is yet no well identified spatial domain for human language, which means that we will have to build a 'quantum cognition' without reference to space (Aerts, 1999;Sassoli de Bianchi, 2019).…”

On the Foundations of the Brussels Operational-Realistic Approach to Cognition

“…More important, the new concept C(A, B) emerges from the concepts A and B, exactly as the linear superposition of two quantum states emerges from the component states. A two-sector Fock space faithfully models Hampton's data, and was later successfully applied to the modeling of more complex situations involving concept combinations (see, e.g., [44,45]).…”

Are Words the Quanta of Human Language? Extending the Domain of Quantum Cognition

“…and concept theory (guppy effect, over and underextension, etc.) (Aerts & Aerts, 1995;Khrennikov, 1999;Atmanspacher, 2002;Gabora & Aerts, 2002;Aerts & Gabora, 2005a,b;Bruza & Cole, 2005;Busemeyer et al, 2006;Aerts, 2009a;Pothos & Busemeyer, 2009;Bruza et al, 2009;Lambert Mogilianski Zamir & Zwirn, 2009;Aerts, 2011;Aerts, Broekaert & Gabora, 2011;Aerts & Sozzo, 2011;Busemeyer & Bruza, 2012;Dalla Chiara et al, 2012;Haven & Khrennikov, 2013;Sozzo, 2014;Aerts, Sozzo & Veloz, 2015a,b;Dalla Chiara et al, 2015;Pothos et al, 2015;Sozzo, 2015;Veloz & Dujardin, 2015;Aerts, Sassoli de Bianchi & Sozzo, 2016;Aerts, Sozzo & Veloz, 2016;Blutner & beim Graben, 2016;Moreira & Wichert, 2016;Broekaert et al, 2017;Gabora & Kitto, 2017;Sozzo, 2017;Aerts et al, 2018b,c;Aerts Arguëlles, 2018;Busemeyer & Wang, 2018;Aerts et al, 2019a;Sozzo, 2020). Quantum information science, with a focus on information retrieval and natural language processing, uses quantum structures to analyze the contextual interaction between humans and information systems and to develop techniques for information retrieval and natural language processing accordingly.…”