Quantum formalism to describe binocular rivalry

Mohammad Reza Paraan, Fatemeh Bakouie, Shahriar Gharibzadeh

Hirao Takahiro, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Emmanuel Pothos +3 more

Binocular rivalry refers to a phenomenon in which the perceived image changes spontaneously over time when the two eyes are presented with different images. The purpose of this study is to test whether the violation of temporal Bell inequality can be experimentally observed in binocular rivalry. If the temporal Bell inequality is violated (under no-signaling in time: NSIT), it implies that the perception of the rival stimuli cannot be assumed to be definite at each point in time (i.e., “realism” in the corresponding mental representations is violated), which is a key indication of non-classical behavior (as in, for example, quantum-like systems). Here, to test the violation of the inequality, we used binocular rivalry and measured both subjective reports and electroencephalogram (EEG). With EEG, we used frequency-tagging technique to track the cortical signal driven by each eye’s stimulus, known as the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). We present the conceptual and methodological approaches to test the temporal Bell inequality.

K. Thomsen

In this short comment to a recent contribution by E. Manousakis [1] it is argued that the reported agreement between the measured time evolution of conscious states during binocular rivalry and predictions derived from quantum mechanical formalisms does not require any direct effect of QM. The recursive consumption analysis process in the Ouroboros Model can yield the same behavior.

M. H. Pirenne

Harish Parthasarathy

Henry Pierce Stapp

A quantum mechanical theory of the relationship between perceptions and brain dynamics based on von Neumann's theory of measurments is applied to a recent quantum theoretical treatment of binocular rivaly that makes essential use of the quantum Zeno effect to give good fits to the complex available empirical data. The often-made claim that decoherence effects in the warm, wet, noisy brain must eliminate quantum effects at the macroscopic scale pertaining to perceptions is examined, and it is argued, on the basis of fundamental principles. that the usual decoherence effects will not upset the quantum Zeno effect that is being exploited in the cited work.