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Toward a Quantum Model of Humor: New Research uses Quantum Theory to Explain why Jokes are Funny

Liane M. Gabora

Published Nov 7, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The quantum formalisms provide a natural way of coping with the kind of ambiguity and contextuality that arises in humour. This paper provided an easy to understand explanation for the rationale for a quantum theory of humour, and summarizes a preliminary effort to test it. The approach uses, not the formalisms of quantum mechanics per se, but an abstracted form of them that has been applied to cognitive (and other) phenomena outside the realm of physics. The paper summarizes an experimental test of the theory that showed that data in which participants rated the funniness of alternative versions of jokes appears to violate the law of total probability. The paper explains why this constitutes tentative support for the quantum theory of humour.

DOI
10.31234/osf.io/5m6u8

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The quantum formalisms provide a natural way of coping with the kind of ambiguity and contextuality that arises in humour. This paper provided an easy to understand explanation for the rationale for a quantum theory of humour, and summarizes a preliminary effort to test it. The approach uses, not the formalisms of quantum mechanics per se, but an abstracted form of them that has been applied to cognitive (and other) phenomena outside the realm of physics. The paper summarizes an experimental test of the theory that showed that data in which participants rated the funniness of alternative versions of jokes appears to violate the law of total probability. The paper explains why this constitutes tentative support for the quantum theory of humour.
Despite our familiarity with and fondness of humor, until relatively recently very little was known about the underlying psychology of this complex and nuanced phenomenon. Recently, however, cognitive psychologists have begun investigating how people understand humor and why we find certain things funny. This chapter introduces a new cognitive approach to modeling humor that we refer to as the 'quantum approach', which will be explained here in intuitive, non-mathematical terms later (a formal treatment can be found in Gabora & Kitto, 2017). What makes the quantum approach a promising candidate for a theory of humor is that it can be useful for representing states of ambiguity, and it defines states and variables with reference to a context. Contextuality and ambiguity both play a key role in humor, which often hangs on an ambiguous word, phrase, or situation that might not make sense, or even be socially acceptable outside the specific context of the joke. The quantum approach does not attempt to explain all aspects of humor, such as the contagious quality of laughter, or why children tease each other, or why people might find it funny when someone is hit in the face with a pie (and laugh even if they know it will happen in advance); what it aims to do is to mathematically represent the underlying cognitive process of "getting" a joke. After briefly overviewing the relevant historical antecedents of the quantum approach and other related approaches in cognitive psychology, we present the theoretical basis of our approach, and outline a recent study that provides empirical support for it.
This paper proposes that cognitive humour can be modelled using the mathematical framework of quantum theory, suggesting that a Quantum Theory of Humour (QTH) is a viable approach. We begin with brief overviews of both research on humour, and the generalized quantum framework. We show how the bisociation of incongruous frames or word meanings in jokes can be modelled as a linear superposition of a set of basis states, or possible interpretations, in a complex Hilbert space. The choice of possible interpretations depends on the context provided by the set-up versus the punchline of a joke. We apply QTH first to a verbal pun, and then consider how this might be extended to frame blending in cartoons. An initial study of 85 participant responses to 35 jokes (and a number of variants) suggests that there is reason to believe that a quantum approach to the modelling of cognitive humour is a viable new avenue of research for the field of quantum cognition.
Recently the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, especially methods of quantum probability theory, started to be widely used in a variety of applications outside of physics, e.g., cognition and psychology as well as economy and finances. To distinguish such models from genuine quantum physical models, they often called quantum-like (although often people simply speak about, e.g., "quantum cognition"). These novel applications generate a number of foundational questions. Nowadays we can speak about a new science - foundations of quantum-like modeling. At the first stage this science was mainly about comparison of classical and quantum models, mainly in the probabilistic setting. It was found that statistical data from cognitive psychology violate some basic constraints posed on data by classical probability theory (Kolmogorov, 1933); in particular, the constraints given by the formula of total probability and Bell's type inequalities. Recently another question attracted some attention. In spite of real success in applications, there are no reason to believe that the quantum probability would cover completely all problems of, e.g., cognition. May be more general probability models have to be explored. A similar problem attracted a lot of attention in foundations of quantum physics culminating in a series of experiments to check Sorkin's equality for the triple-slit experiment by Weihs' group. In this note we present a similar test in the cognitive experimental setting. Performance of this test would either give further confirmation of the adequacy of the quantum probability model to cognitive applications or rejection of the conventional quantum model. Thus this note opens the door for a series of exciting experimental tests for the quantum-like model of cognition.
Applications of quantum mechanics have led to many successful predictions and explanations of puzzling phenomena, and we now apply quantum mechanics to gain, process, and communicate information in novel ways. We can understand quantum mechanics by understanding how we have applied it. We should not seek agreement on the nature of the world it represents, because this theory does not itself represent the physical world (though its applications do help us to represent it better). When applied to a quantum state, quantum mechanics yields probabiities for physical events: both state and probability are objective--not because they represent elements of phyiscal reality, but because each exerts norrmative authority over the beliefs of anyone who accepts quantum mechanics and applies it relative to a physical situation they may (but need not) occupy. These events may be described by statements that are meaningful in an appropriate environmental context, and quantum mechanics can help one to say when that is. Measurement creates an appropriate context, so here the Born rule indirectly yields probabilities of measurement outcomes. The quantum state of a system does not "collapse" on measurement: a new state must be assigned relative to a physical situation in which information about the outcome is accessible. Understood this way, there is no measurement problem, and violations of Bell inequalities does not demonstrate "spooky" non-local action. Quantum field theories have no physical ontology of their own: a quantum field is a mathematical object in a model whose application helps us to improve and extend our descriptions of the world in other terms. We cannot realise the scenario of Wigner's friend and its recent extensions: but the data that provide overwhelming evidence for quantum mechanics are objective in the same sense as the relative measurement outcomes described in those scenarios.
Quantum cognition research applies abstract, mathematical principles of quantum theory to inquiries in cognitive science. It differs fundamentally from alternative speculations about quantum brain processes. This topic presents new developments within this research program. In the introduction to this topic, we try to answer three questions: Why apply quantum concepts to human cognition? How is quantum cognitive modeling different from traditional cognitive modeling? What cognitive processes have been modeled using a quantum account? In addition, a brief introduction to quantum probability theory and a concrete example is provided to illustrate how a quantum cognitive model can be developed to explain paradoxical empirical findings in psychological literature.