Towards an Empirical Test of Realism in Cognition

Sisir Roy

James M. Yearsley, Emmanuel M. Pothos

We discuss recent progress towards an empirical test of ‘realism’\nin cognition, ‘realism’ in this context being the property\nthat cognitive variables always have well defined (if unknown)\nvalues at all times. Our main result is an inequality obeyed by\nrealist theories, which could be tested by a suitable experiment.\nWe focus our attention in this contribution on two particular\nissues. The first is the exact notion of realism which is to be\ntested, as this has received less attention in earlier work. The\nsecond is an important technical issue about the inequality we\nuse; in earlier work Atmanspacher and Filk (2010) considered\na different expression, and we explain why our inequality is\nmore suitable for use under realistic experimental conditions

Simon Gröblacher, Tomasz Paterek, Rainer Kaltenbaek +4 more

Christopher B. Germann

Quantum cognition is an interdisciplinary emerging field within the cognitive sciences which applies various axioms of quantum mechanics to cognitive processes. This thesis reports the results of several empirical investigations which focus on the applicability of quantum cognition to psychophysical perceptual processes. Specifically, we experimentally tested several a priori hypotheses concerning 1) constructive measurement effects in sequential perceptual judgments and 2) noncommutativity in the measurement of psychophysical observables. In order to establish the generalisability of our findings, we evaluated our prediction across different sensory modalities (i.e., visual versus auditory perception) and in cross-cultural populations (United Kingdom and India). Given the well-documented acute “statistical crisis” in science (Loken & Gelman, 2017a) and the various paralogisms associated with Fisherian/Neyman-Pearsonian null hypothesis significance testing, we contrasted various alternative statistical approaches which are based on complementary inferential frameworks (i.e., classical null hypothesis significance testing, nonparametric bootstrapping, model comparison based on Bayes Factors analysis, Bayesian bootstrapping, and Bayesian parameter estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations). This multimethod approach enabled us to analytically cross-validate our experimental results, thereby increasing the robustness and reliability of our inferential conclusions. The findings are discussed in an interdisciplinary context which synthesises knowledge from several prima facie separate disciplines (i.e., psychology, quantum physics, neuroscience, and philosophy). We propose a radical reconceptualization of various epistemological and ontological assumptions which are ubiquitously taken for granted (e.g., naïve and local realism/cognitive determinism). Our conclusions are motivated by recent cutting-edge findings in experimental quantum physics which are incompatible with the materialistic/deterministic metaphysical Weltanschauung internalised by the majority of scientists. Consequently, we argue that scientists need to update their nonevidence-based implicit beliefs in the light of this epistemologically challenging empirical evidence.

Dick J. Hoekzema

James M. Yearsley, Emmanuel M. Pothos

All mental representations change with time. A baseline intuition is that mental representations have specific values at different time points, which may be more or less accessible, depending on noise, forgetting processes, etc. We present a radical alternative, motivated by recent research using the mathematics from quantum theory for cognitive modelling. Such cognitive models raise the possibility that certain possibilities or events may be incompatible, so that perfect knowledge of one necessitates uncertainty for the others. In the context of time-dependence, in physics, this issue is explored with the so-called temporal Bell (TB) or Leggett-Garg inequalities. We consider in detail the theoretical and empirical challenges involved in exploring the TB inequalities in the context of cognitive systems. One interesting conclusion is that we believe the study of the TB inequalities to be empirically more constrained in psychology than in physics. Specifically, we show how the TB inequalities, as applied to cognitive systems, can be derived from two simple assumptions: cognitive realism and cognitive completeness. We discuss possible implications of putative violations of the TB inequalities for cognitive models and our understanding of time in cognition in general. Overall, this paper provides a surprising, novel direction in relation to how time should be conceptualized in cognition.