Quantum cognition: a new theoretical approach to psychology

Abstract

What type of probability theory best describes the way humans make judgments under uncertainty and decisions under conflict? Although rational models of cognition have become prominent and have achieved much success, they adhere to the laws of classical probability theory despite the fact that human reasoning does not always conform to these laws. For this reason we have seen the recent emergence of models based on an alternative probabilistic framework drawn from quantum theory. These quantum models show promise in addressing cognitive phenomena that have proven recalcitrant to modeling by means of classical probability theory. This review compares and contrasts probabilistic models based on Bayesian or classical versus quantum principles, and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Reinforcing Trust in Autonomous Systems: A Quantum Cognitive Approach

“…In this presentation there is no need to go any deeper into the fine points where quantum cognition and the Bayesian approach part company. Therefore we only present Table 12.1 as a summary, and refer the interested reader to [9] for further details.…”

“…An entangled system is deemed "contextual" because it is not possible to combine these four pairwise joint probability distributions into a single probabilistic model such that the four pairwise empirical distributions are marginal distributions of this global model. Even though contextuality manifests within the sub-atomic realm, there is a growing body of research which is exploring whether contextuality manifests in cognition and related areas (e.g., [1,2,8,9,16,17]). In the context of our example, contextuality arises because the image and content decision perspectives cannot be meaningfully combined into a single joint distribution.…”

A Quantum Query Expansion Approach for Session Search

“…Quantum theory (e.g., quantum interference) has been regarded as an important feature of the quantum theory and has been applied in quantum cognition and decision making [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Khrennikov pointed out that the classical and quantum mechanical models on p-adic information spaces might be able to investigate the flows of information in cognitive and social systems since a p-adic metric gives quite a natural description of the ability to form associations [20].…”

“…Khrennikov further studied the information dynamics in cognitive, psychological, social and anomalous phenomena with the quantum or quantum-like probabilistic structure [21,22]. Many quantum based IR research works [6,27], including our approach that incorporates quantum interference in query expansion, are inspired by these fundamental research on quantum cognition [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Isoqualitative Gauge Curvature at Multiple Scales: A Response to the Agnosticism of Quantum Cognitivism and Quantum Interaction

“…", Pothos and Busemeyer argued that quantumformal models of cognition fit the bulk of existing data in the research literature with more empirical accuracy and more axiomatic parsimony than does standard modeling via non-quantum Bayesian probability (Pothos and Busemeyer, 2013). A case can indeed be made that greater empirical accuracy is achieved by quantum-formal models incorporating unitary time evolution, entanglement, superpositional interference, and order-dependent effects of sequentially assayed through the considerable power of formal abstractions from quantum physics (Bruza et al, 2015;Busemeyer et al, 2015). Yet a deep problem arises in connection with this apparently promising agenda.…”