Quantum Structure in Human Perception

Abstract

We wish to investigate the ways in which the quantum structures of superposition, contextuality, and entanglement have their origins in human perception itself, given how they are sucessfully used to model aspects of human cognition. Our analysis takes us from a simple quantum measurement model, along how human perception incorporates the warping mechanism of categorical perception, to a quantum version of the prototype theory for concepts, which allows for dynamic contextuality when concepts are combined. Our study is rooted in an operational quantum axiomatics that leads to a state context property system for concepts. We illustrate our quantum prototype model and its interference when combining concepts with two examples worked out in detail