Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking

[bananas]

http://www.physorg.com/news158928941.html

Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking
April 14th, 2009 By Lisa Zyga

(PhysOrg.com) -- Humans don’t always make the most rational decisions. As studies have shown, even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply "wishful thinking." This paradoxical human behavior has resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. But now, scientists have shown that a quantum probability model can provide a simple explanation for human decision-making - and may eventually help explain the success of human cognition overall.

If you were asked to gamble in a game in which you had a 50/50 chance to win $200 or lose $100, would you play? In one study, participants were told that they had just played this game, and then were asked to choose whether to try the same gamble again. One-third of the participants were told that they had won the first game, one-third were told they had lost the first game, and the remaining one-third did not know the outcome of their first game. Most of the participants in the first two scenarios chose to play again (69% and 59%, respectively), while most of the participants in the third scenario chose not to (only 36% played again). These results violate the “sure thing principle,” which says that if you prefer choice A in two complementary known states (e.g., known winning and known losing), then you should also prefer choice A when the state is unknown. So why do people choose differently when confronted with an unknown state?

<snip>

“A few decades ago, Tversky and Kahneman (1974) challenged ubiquitous assumptions regarding what is the most suitable framework for modeling human cognition,” Busemeyer told PhysOrg.com. “Until then, most psychologists sought to understand cognition using classic probability theory. In our paper we raise the question, which mathematical framework is most appropriate for cognitive modeling? In this article, for the first time, we present a fundamentally different, and more powerful, approach to probabilistic models of cognition, based on quantum principles. Employing minimal assumptions, we derive a Hamiltonian directly from the parameters of the problem (e.g., the payoffs associated with different actions) and known general principles of cognition (e.g., a well known phenomenon of cognitive dissonance); every step in our model is psychologically interpreted and rigorously justified.”

<snip>

Pothos and Busemeyer hope that further research on quantum probability models of human cognition could help answer fundamental questions about the nature of how we think. For example, what does it mean to be rational? Another example is Schrodinger’s equation, which predicts a periodic oscillation between choices after a minimum length of time. This oscillation matches with electroencephalography signals and may explain why the longer you debate on a decision, the more you fluctuate. Overall, if our brains use quantum principles, and quantum computation is known to be fundamentally faster than classical computation in computers, then perhaps quantum principles can even help explain the success of human cognition.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/03/23/rspb.2009.0121.abstract

A quantum probability explanation for violations of ‘rational’ decision theory

1. Emmanuel M. Pothos1,* and
2. Jerome R. Busemeyer2,*

Abstract

Two experimental tasks in psychology, the two-stage gambling game and the Prisoner's Dilemma game, show that people violate the sure thing principle of decision theory. These paradoxical findings have resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. A quantum probability model, based on a Hilbert space representation and Schrödinger's equation, provides a simple and elegant explanation for this behaviour. The quantum model is compared with an equivalent Markov model and it is shown that the latter is unable to account for violations of the sure thing principle. Accordingly, it is argued that quantum probability provides a better framework for modelling human decision-making.

o Received January 23, 2009.
o Accepted March 4, 2009.
* © 2009 The Royal Society

[DonCoquixote]

1. So, if this works

We may be able to prove that Computers will never think like we can..It would be a coup to actually synthesize sentience, taking right right out of the jaws of God!

[caraher]

2. The headline is potentially misleading

What the authors demonstrate fairly convincingly is that the mathematical structure used in quantum mechanics may have great utility in mathematical analysis of human behavior.

What I don't like about the headline is that it may tend suggest that the existence of wishful thinking somehow has its roots in quantum physics (as opposed to there simply being useful mathematical parallels between this analysis of "wishful thinking" - which seems here to have a fairly narrow technical definition - and quantum theory). This does not constitute anything like a proof that, say, quantum indeterminacy plays an essential role in human cognition. (Nor do the researchers seem to imply that - but it's the sort of thing that is easily spun by pitchers of woo; I can easily imagine something like this getting play in a sequel to "What the Bleep")

[GoesTo11]

3. Thanks for pointing this out.

You are exactly right that this is not a proof of anything. Looks like interesting ideas - the question is whether they make accurate predictions about behavior and do so with relatively simple models. Some of it looks way too specific to really work well (the thing about oscillations - people may vacillate
but there's no reason for them to do it with any periodicity). It did seem like a clever way to look at the experiment where people behave differently in the future depending on whether or not the previous event is resolved (and not so much how it was resolved).

It would help if there was some underlying parallel between the structures in quantum physics and in human behavior under uncertainty that would lead us to expect the analogy to work well. Beats me what that would be.

[caraher]

4. It sounds like the issue is limits in the "classical" decision theory

I think what this Hilbert space machinery may be buying them is a way to represent someone who is truly undecided. It sounded like much of the work people have done presupposes that people behave in a certain consistent way and always choose A over B or B over A in the same circumstances. This might allow them to describe both that situation and ones where, when push comes to shove, a subject must make a choice, but really does not have a stable preference. They seem to have found it handier to describe proclivities for choices as, say, complex numbers rather than as real numbers.

[GoesTo11]

5. Did you read the article?

I didn't download it, but I would be interested to know what this complex number proclivity for choices would mean. There are models of uncertain utility functions / uncertain preferences, but this sounds more structured. Is it that the preference of A over B depends on a complicated function of A and B, i.e., pr({A} preferred to {B}) = f({A},{B}), where the latter cannot be expressed as any simple (e.g., additive) g({A}), g({B})?

I don't know that I'd call this a limit in classical decision theory, though. Classical decision theory is normative rather than descriptive anyway, and whatever this quantum stuff is, it apparently goes beyond descriptive theories that are largely modifications of classical DT.

[caraher]

6. I didn't read the academic article

I should check it out later today

[phantom power]

7. I have an opinion on this.

My opinion is that people are bothered by the idea of a mechanistic model of human cognition, and they see "quantum theory" as some kind of last refuge of "free will." And so we see tons of speculation about why quantum theory may be behind biological cognition, even though we are far from understanding how our central nervous system works even at the non quantum level.