More Causes Less Effect: Destructive Interference in Decision Making

Abstract

We present a new experiment demonstrating destructive interference in customers’ estimates of conditional probabilities of product failure. We take the perspective of a manufacturer of consumer products and consider two situations of cause and effect. Whereas, individually, the effect of the causes is similar, it is observed that when combined, the two causes produce the opposite effect. Such negative interference of two or more product features may be exploited for better modeling of the cognitive processes taking place in customers’ minds. Doing so can enhance the likelihood that a manufacturer will be able to design a better product, or a feature within it. Quantum probability has been used to explain some commonly observed “non-classical” effects, such as the disjunction effect, question order effect, violation of the sure-thing principle, and the Machina and Ellsberg paradoxes. In this work, we present results from a survey on the impact of multiple observed symptoms on the drivability of a vehicle. The symptoms are assumed to be conditionally independent. We demonstrate that the response statistics cannot be directly explained using classical probability, but quantum formulation easily models it, as it allows for both positive and negative “interference” between events. Since quantum formalism also accounts for classical probability’s predictions, it serves as a richer paradigm for modeling decision making behavior in engineering design and behavioral economics.

A Quantum-Classical Model of Brain Dynamics

“…Our parallelism between Bi-logic [45][46][47][48]. and quantum-classical phenomena in the brain can also be considered as the motivation for extending the current quantum-like models of cognition [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] to take into account quantumclassical processes.…”

“…Therefore, given that logic, in accordance with the current theories of the human psyche [45][46][47][48], has a bipartite 'quantum-classical' structure, a clear quantum-classical theory adopted as "regulator" model of the brain activity complies with this theorem . We wish to remark, in passing, that any advancement of such an approach, would produce a significant consolidation of the quantum-like models of cognition developed in the past years [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61].…”

A Quantum-Classical Model of Brain Dynamics

“…As is clarified in the following, bi-logic comprises Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian logics. Discussions on the bi-partite structure of logic can also be of interest to quantum models of decision making [57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65], quantum information biology [66], and translational neuroscience [50][51][52][53][54][55][56].…”

“…Since bi-logic [45][46][47][48] can be likened to a quantum-classical worldview and there are already models supporting the quantum-classical nature of the brain , the idea of developing models by means of an explicit quantum-classical theory naturally arises. Our parallelism between bi-logic [45][46][47][48] and quantum-classical phenomena in the brain can also be considered as the motivation for extending the current quantum-like models of cognition [57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65] to take into account quantum-classical processes. In the remaining part of this section, we discuss the historical development of non-Aristotelian logic in psychology and clinical psychology.…”

“…While we acknowledge that such concepts lack, at the moment, both quantitative definitions and complete explanations in terms of biomolecular processes, it must be emphasized that neuroscience [49] is continuously advancing toward the inclusion of psychological phenomena within the boundaries of quantitative science. Thus, once our use of these words is understood, it becomes easier to accept the idea that psychological theories and clinical psychology could feed the synergistic growing of translational neuroscience [50][51][52][53][54][55][56], quantum models of decision-making [57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65], and quantum information biology [66].…”