Exploration of Quantum Interference in Document Relevance Judgement Discrepancy

Abstract

Quantum theory has been applied in a number of fields outside physics, e.g., cognitive science and information retrieval (IR). Recently, it has been shown that quantum theory can subsume various key IR models into a single mathematical formalism of Hilbert vector spaces. While a series of quantum-inspired IR models has been proposed, limited effort has been devoted to verify the existence of the quantum-like phenomenon in real users' information retrieval processes, from a real user study perspective. In this paper, we aim to explore and model the quantum interference in users' relevance judgement about documents, caused by the presentation order of documents. A user study in the context of IR tasks have been carried out. The existence of the quantum interference is tested by the violation of the law of total probability and the validity of the order effect. Our main findings are: (1) there is an apparent judging discrepancy across different users and document presentation orders, and empirical data have violated the law of total probability; (2) most search trials recorded in the user study show the existence of the order effect, and the incompatible decision perspectives in the quantum question (QQ) model are valid in some trials. We further explain the judgement discrepancy in more depth, in terms of four effects (comparison, unfamiliarity, attraction and repulsion) and also analyse the dynamics of document relevance judgement in terms of the evolution of the information need subspace.

Order effect on relevance judgment: An exploratory study on the detection of quantum interference

“…By conducting a between‐subject experiment, this study confirmed the partial existence of order effect and quantum interference on relevance judgment. The results are consistent with prior studies (Eisenberg & Barry, ; Wang et al, ). However, inconsistent with the findings from Wang and Huang (2004), we found that the order effect is also significant even when there are only two full‐texts to be assessed.…”

“…Comparing with the classical probability theory, the model based on quantum theory is more inclusive and has stronger explanatory power for both compatible and incompatible events by representing the vector spaces as orthogonal axes in a Hilbert space, rather than in the form of a set. (Uprety and Song, 2018; Wang et al, )…”

Quantum Minimum Distance Classifier

“…In recent years, we observed an increasing interest toward the use of quantum formalism in non-microscopic domains [1][2][3][4]. The idea is that the powerful predictive properties of quantum mechanics, used for describing the behavior of microscopic phenomena, turn out to be particularly beneficial also in non-microscopic domains.…”

Some Brief Comments on Recent Studies on Quantum Cognition

“…Therefore, we will not enter into such features also in the present paper but we will limit ourselves to elaborate only upon specific questions. One example is given by the so called question of the order-effect that also recently has been represented in this journal by us (see as example, Wang et al, 2016 …”