Topic · 30 links
Quantum cognition
Using the math of quantum theory to model how people make judgments and decisions, and whether AI models make the same mistakes.
To a security audience, "quantum" usually means quantum computing or post-quantum cryptography. This topic is neither. Quantum cognition borrows the math of quantum theory to describe patterns in human judgment that standard probability handles badly: answers that change depending on which question comes first, or people rating a specific scenario as more likely than a broader one that includes it. The claim is about the math, not the brain, and the sources that say so plainly are marked. The security interest is in judgment under uncertainty. Deception works by shaping what an attacker sees and in what order, and analysts face the same pressures when they triage alerts, so a better model of how people update their beliefs matters to both. The newest question is whether AI models show the same effects, which becomes important once AI agents are the ones making decisions during an attack. Critics are included alongside supporters.
Start here
Five readings, best read in order. You'll start with a short, plain-language introduction, then get the full case from the field's leading researchers. Next comes the strongest argument that the approach doesn't work, followed by how the field responded. The last reading is the first attempt to apply these ideas to AI models. Each reading has a note on why it's in that spot. The first four are also on the home page, and more reading lists are on Paths.
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Quantum cognition: a new theoretical approach to psychology
Ten pages, no linear algebra required, and it establishes that nobody is claiming the brain is a quantum computer.
Short, readable introduction aimed at psychologists rather than mathematicians. The author's copy is free; the Elsevier version is paywalled. Ten pages, and the fastest way into the vocabulary.
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The full case, free to read, with the authors' own account of where the models are weak.
Free-to-read review covering contextual inference, belief updating and interference effects, with an explicit section on limitations. The single best orientation piece if you read only one thing here.
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Quantum-like models cannot account for the conjunction fallacy
Read the strongest attack before you are persuaded, not after. Order effects predicted wrongly is a serious result.
The strongest published attack on the programme: experiments on question-order effects produce results the quantum account of the conjunction fallacy predicts wrongly. Read it before citing any quantum explanation of Linda.
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An overview of the quantum cognition research program
How the field responded, including to the replication failures. The most current open survey.
The most current open-access survey, covering judgment fallacies, concept combination, order effects and memory, and engaging directly with replication failures such as Boyer-Kassem's order-effect results.
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The only work found that applies this machinery to a model rather than a person, and it mostly reports an obstacle.
Takes the parameter-free QQ equality from quantum cognition and applies it to model log-probabilities, finding most item pairs saturate into near-determinism and so cannot support a distribution-level test. The only direct link between these two literatures found.
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Foundations 9
The works everything else in the area cites.
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Quantum cognition: a new theoretical approach to psychology
Short, readable introduction aimed at psychologists rather than mathematicians. The author's copy is free; the Elsevier version is paywalled. Ten pages, and the fastest way into the vocabulary.
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What Is Quantum Cognition, and How Is It Applied to Psychology?
Seven pages built around two ideas, complementarity and superposition, and explicit that the claim is mathematical rather than a claim about quantum brains. That disclaimer is the most misquoted thing in the field.
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Can quantum probability provide a new direction for cognitive modeling?
The target article that put quantum probability in front of the wider cognitive science community, published with dozens of peer commentaries. The commentaries are where the strongest objections live.
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Quantum Approaches to Consciousness
Last revised May 2024. Section 4 separates quantum cognition from quantum-consciousness claims, making the case for quantum mind without quantum brain. The cleanest statement of what the field is not claiming.
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Open Quantum Systems in Biology, Cognitive and Social Sciences
Extends the framework to open-system dynamics, with the decision maker coupled to an environment rather than isolated. The most current book-length treatment from this school.
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Chapter 7 of Ron Sun's handbook, which places quantum cognition among the other modelling paradigms instead of defending it in isolation. The most useful framing available if you already know Bayesian cognitive modelling.
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Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision
The field's standard monograph. Builds the Hilbert-space machinery from scratch, then applies it to judgment, decision and memory. Assumes linear algebra. A second edition exists — check which you are citing.
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Ubiquitous Quantum Structure: From Psychology to Finance
Develops the Växjö contextual probability model, arguing non-Kolmogorov probability is the general case rather than a quantum peculiarity. Mathematically heavier than Busemeyer and Bruza and much less tied to experiments.
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Reasonably sourced overview, roughly 48 citations spanning 1953 to 2022. It is here as an orientation link despite the general exclusion of secondary coverage. It has no criticism section and reads as advocacy, so pair it with Boyer-Kassem.
Order effects 1
Question-order and sequence phenomena, and the QQ equality that predicts them.
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Takes the parameter-free QQ equality from quantum cognition and applies it to model log-probabilities, finding most item pairs saturate into near-determinism and so cannot support a distribution-level test. The only direct link between these two literatures found.
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Concept combination 3
Conjunction and disjunction effects in how people combine concepts.
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Concepts and Their Dynamics: A Quantum-Theoretic Modeling of Human Thought
Treats contextuality, interference, entanglement and emergence in concept combination and ties them back to conventional psychological theories of concepts. Author list confirmed from the repository listing, not the arXiv header.
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Quantum Structure in Cognition: Fundamentals and Applications
Compact statement of the Brussels position: quantum conceptual thought running alongside classical reasoning, with implications drawn for information retrieval and artificial intelligence. Shorter than the journal papers.
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Quantum Structure in Cognition
Proves that classical models cannot reproduce measured membership weights for conceptual conjunctions and disjunctions, and derives superposition and interference from that failure. The founding paper of the Brussels line of work.
Computational models 1
Implementable quantum-like models and their comparison to classical ones.
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Quantum-Like Bayesian Networks for Modeling Decision Making
Replaces classical probabilities with amplitudes inside a Bayesian network and adds a similarity heuristic so the quantum parameters are computed rather than fitted. Addresses the standard overfitting objection directly.
Critiques 2
Arguments that quantum models overfit, fail to replicate, or explain nothing new.
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Quantum-like models cannot account for the conjunction fallacy
The strongest published attack on the programme: experiments on question-order effects produce results the quantum account of the conjunction fallacy predicts wrongly. Read it before citing any quantum explanation of Linda.
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Quantum principles in psychology: The debate, the evidence, and the future
The authors' reply to the BBS commentaries, and the most concentrated place to see the objections stated and answered. Free full text via City's repository; read it immediately after the target article.
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Trust and deception 1
Quantum-like treatments of trust, credibility and adversarial judgment.
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A formulation of computational trust based on quantum decision theory
Splits trust into objective and subjective components and uses interference terms to model how evaluations shift between isolated and comparative judgment. One of very few quantum-cognition papers aimed at a security-adjacent problem.
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Machine belief states 1
Applying human-cognition models and bias inventories to model behaviour.
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Cognitive Bias in High-Stakes Decision-Making with LLMs
BiasBuster, a 16,800-prompt framework for measuring and mitigating cognitive bias in model decisions. Relevant here because deception doctrine assumes exploitable biases; this is the closest thing to an inventory of them in machines.
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Tutorials 2
Step-by-step introductions to the formalism.
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Advanced tools and concepts for quantum cognition: A tutorial
The formal machinery worked through: POVMs, temporal Bell inequalities, model comparison. Free accepted version in City's repository. For building models, not reading about them.
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Quantum Cognition and Decision Notes
Busemeyer's own page: tutorial chapters, free preprints of most of his papers, Hilbert Space Model code. Plain HTML, no index, and the full texts really are here.
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Surveys and taxonomies 2
The fastest way into a literature.
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An overview of the quantum cognition research program
The most current open-access survey, covering judgment fallacies, concept combination, order effects and memory, and engaging directly with replication failures such as Boyer-Kassem's order-effect results.
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Free-to-read review covering contextual inference, belief updating and interference effects, with an explicit section on limitations. The single best orientation piece if you read only one thing here.
Courses 1
Structured teaching material.
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9.66J Computational Cognitive Science
Background rather than quantum cognition: the Bayesian modelling tradition that quantum accounts define themselves against, without which the arguments are hard to follow. Notes, readings, projects. CC BY-NC-SA, and twenty years old.
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Venues 2
Where this work is published and presented.
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Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Volume 53, Issue 5: Special Issue on Quantum Cognition
The 2009 Bruza and Gabora special issue, where the field consolidated: Aerts on quantum structure, and the first empirical Markov-versus-quantum comparisons. Articles mostly paywalled.
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International Symposium on Quantum Interaction (QI)
The dedicated venue for quantum-structure work across cognition, language and information retrieval. Nothing since QI 2018; the series looks dormant.
People 5
Researchers with substantial public bodies of work.
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Founding director of CLEA, and the originator of the conceptuality interpretation. The Brussels group puts nearly everything on arXiv.
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Indiana University; directs the Computational Decision Making Lab. Order effects in inference, Bayesian model comparison.
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Indiana University. The field's most prolific author.
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Co-author of the BBS target article and the Annual Review survey. The free full texts are in City Research Online, not on this page.
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Ohio State, School of Communication. Co-authored the question-order studies; comes at the field from communication rather than mathematical psychology.
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