The cognitive triple-slit experiment

TL;DR

The paper investigates cognitive analogues of single, double, and triple-slit interference using a one-dimensional detection screen and a ranking-based data collection across 213 participants to test the nullity of the Sorkin parameter in cognition. It develops the formalism for a cognitive Sorkin parameter epsilon(x|123) and its normalized form kappa(x|123), and finds large nonzero values of kappa, signaling third-order interference–like effects in human judgments. The results support the conceptuality interpretation by showing interference-like patterns in meaning processing while noting crucial differences from physical waves, and they discuss implications for pancognitivist realism and future concept-combination tests.

Abstract

Quantum cognition has made it possible to model human cognitive processes very effectively, revealing numerous parallels between the properties of conceptual entities tested by the human mind and those of microscopic entities tested by measurement apparatuses. The success of quantum cognition has also made it possible to formulate an interpretation of quantum mechanics, called the conceptuality interpretation, which ascribes to quantum entities a conceptual nature similar to that of human concepts. The present work fits into these lines of research by analyzing a cognitive version of single, double, and triple-slit experiments. The data clearly show the formation of the typical interference fringes between the slits as well as the embryos of secondary fringes. Our analysis also shows that while quantum entities and human concepts may share a same conceptual nature, the way they manifest it in specific contexts can be quite different. This is also evident from the significant deviation from zero observed for the Sorkin parameter, indicating the presence of strong irreducible third-order interference contributions in human decision.

Figures (11)

• Figure 1: A schematic representation of the two-slit experiment in the case of classical (top right) and quantum (bottom right) entities.
• Figure 2: (color online) On the left are the experimental probabilities of selecting a typical exemplar of Fruit and of Vegetable, with Apple and Broccoli being the most frequently chosen, respectively. The top right figure shows their uniform average, which differs greatly from the experimental probabilities of selecting a typical exemplar of Fruit or vegetable, modeled using the quantum superposition principle (bottom right figure) and exhibiting birefringence-like interference phenomena aerts2009.
• Figure 3: (color online) A continuous approximation of the discrete single-slit functions $P_F(x)$ (purple color) and $P_V(x)$ (green color), and corresponding double-slit function $P_{FV}(x)$ (brown color), which is the one-dimensional equivalent of the two-dimensional pattern exhibited in Figure \ref{['birefringence']}.
• Figure 4: Examples of exotic paths that cross all three slits. See the analysis in yabuki1986.
• Figure 5: (color online) The large rectangular area that was presented to the participants, with the row of $43$ identical portions of food, here in the situation with three openings.