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Mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures
Elio Conte, Andrei Yuri Khrennikov, Orlando Todarello, Antonio Federici, Leonardo Mendolicchio, Joseph P. Zbilut
TL;DR
The paper examines whether quantum mechanics helps explain perception and cognition of ambiguous figures, addressing a difficult link between empirical neuroscience and brain dynamics. Using quantum interference analysis, it reports quantum-like interference in humans during ambiguous-figure perception and cognition, including semantic conflict.
Problem
The paper addresses the unresolved link between empirical neuroscience and the possible role of quantum mechanics in brain dynamics.
Method
The paper uses an interference coefficient to measure incompatibility in its analysis of perception and cognition.
Results
The experiments establish quantum-like interference during human perception and cognition of ambiguous figures, including semantic conflict.
Takeaways & Limitations
The findings support the conclusion that mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures.
Takeaways & Limitations
The authors note that future generalizations of present physical knowledge cannot be excluded.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Processes undergoing quantum mechanics, exhibit quantum interference effects. In this case quantum probabilities result to be different from classical probabilities because they contain an additional main point that in fact is called the quantum interference term. We use ambiguous figures to analyse if during perception cognition of human subjects we have violation of the classical probability field and quantum interference. The experiments, conducted on a group of 256 subjects, evidence that we have such quantum effect. Therefore, mental states, during perception cognition of ambiguous figures, follow quantum mechanics
Introduction
The introduction identifies a gap between psychological descriptions of mental experience and neurophysiological data, motivating quantum-mechanical approaches. It presents evidence that mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures.
- Problem: Neuroscience struggles to connect psychologically described studies with data described in neurophysiological terms.Functional imaging identifies brain areas involved in functions such as learning and memory, but does not by itself establish the link to phenomenology.
- Motivation: Some mental and experiential functions may require an adequate physics beyond material structure, motivating consideration of quantum mechanics.The introduction specifically identifies “feeling” and “knowing” as functions that may not be describable exclusively in material terms.
- Motivation: The paper addresses whether quantum mechanics has a role in brain dynamics through experiments relevant to neuroscience and neuropsychology.The introduction frames this question as a fundamental and general interest for neuroscience and neuropsychology.
- Contribution: The paper demonstrates that mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures.This is presented as the paper’s contribution to the basic problem of quantum mechanics in brain dynamics.
Quantum theoretical approach
The section frames quantum mechanics as a non-reductionist formalism for testing whether mental states exhibit quantum-like probability behavior. It focuses on interference and contextual probabilities as empirical signatures in cognitive systems.
- Motivation and scope: Present physical theory lacks an apparatus for describing conscious systems, but future generalizations may approach this problem through quantum mechanics.The paper treats quantum mechanics as a possible framework rather than reducing mental processes to quantum physics.
- Contribution: The authors report experimental confirmation that mental states during some stages of human perception and cognition can be described by quantum-mechanical formalism.They present this as a first contribution, while explicitly rejecting a quantum-reductionist perspective.
- Quantum probability: Quantum probabilistic behavior is characterized by interference, which provides the experimental basis for the superposition principle.The paper identifies interference as the essential peculiarity investigated in the study.
- Contextual probabilities: Contextual probabilities extend quantum probability theory by treating experimental conditions as contexts and enabling quantum-like behavior in cognitive systems.In this paper, a context is a complex of mental conditions.
- Probability violation: The interference coefficient measures incompatibility, while classical total probability is violated in statistical experiments with quantum systems.The two-slit experiment is presented as the basic example of this violation.
Arrangement of the Experiment
The experiment used ambiguous figures to examine quantum-like behavior in perception and cognition rather than optical illusions themselves. Its model treats consciousness as potential alternative representations, with only one percept becoming actual at a time.
- Experiment rationale: Ambiguous figures were used to study the perceptual-cognitive system as a simple model for possible future analyses of more complex conditions.The paper explicitly distinguishes this aim from analyzing optical illusions.
- Experiment rationale: Observers may recognize multiple possible representations but perceive only one at a time, switching serially between alternatives.This serial access to alternatives is identified as the key feature motivating the quantum-like model.
- Quantum-like model: The model represents bistable perception as a two-state quantum system in which individuals can hold multiple representations but attend to only one at any given time.It distinguishes potential consciousness from an actual or manifest conscious state.
- Quantum-like model: The potential state of consciousness is represented as a superposition in Hilbert space, with probability amplitudes determining which percept becomes manifested.The framework assigns distinct probabilities to the two possible perceptual states.
- Scope and limitation: The analysis omits the time evolution of the potential state for brevity.This is an explicit limitation of the presented treatment.
- Quantum-like model: The superposition principle links doubt, inner conflict, indetermination, and uncertainty in perception and cognition to a probability-field account of mind.The paper presents this relation as part of its conclusion about quantum mechanics and mental entities.
Experiment Set Up.
The experiment examined multistable perception, in which ambiguous images support alternating perceptual interpretations despite constant retinal input. It distinguished observer reversal rates and identified percept persistence and uncertainty as two experimentally relevant times.
- Multistable perception involves ambiguous images perceived in at least two mutually exclusive manners, with interpretations alternating between perceptual possibilities.
- The experiment distinguished two observer types: fast observers with larger frequencies of perspective reversals and slow observers with lower frequencies.
- Percept durations averaged about two seconds and could approach about five seconds.
- Uncertain percept-state times averaged about 1 sec for fast subjects, in addition to perspective reversals.
- Experiments identified percept-persistence time and uncertainty time, when neither percept is certain, corresponding to the model’s potential state of consciousness.
Methods
The study used four ambiguous-figure experiments involving 256 subjects, varying figure type, test order, and semantic conflict. Participants made binary perceptual choices under controlled viewing conditions, and results were analyzed with chi-square tests within a quantum-observable framework.
- Experimental design: The experiments produced different neural conditions, with specific neural pathways engaged by ambiguous geometrical figures, animal forms, and animals with inner semantic conflict.The paper attributes these differences to the distinct figure types and semantic conflict conditions.
- Participants and procedure: Participants aged 19–22 years, with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, were randomly divided into groups receiving Test A or Test B followed by Test A.Test B was followed by Test A about 800 msec after the choice for Test B.
- Participants and procedure: Subjects selected A=+ or A=-, or B=+ or B=-, according to what they were thinking about the figure at the instant of observation.Viewing was binocular, used random reversals, and required observers to press a key when aware of one percept.
- Statistical analysis: Tests A and B were modeled as dichotomous quantum observables, and each experiment was analyzed separately with a non-parametric chi-square test of the null hypothesis H0.Probabilities obtained by Test A were considered against probabilities obtained by Test A/B.
Results
The results report statistically significant quantum-like interference in perception and cognition of ambiguous figures. They provide strong evidence that mental states follow quantum mechanics, including under Stroop-induced semantic conflict.
- Results: Quantum-like interference was confirmed with statistical significance exceeding 95%.The results are reported in Table 1.
- Results: The findings provide strong evidence that mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures.The conclusion is described as robust and supported by accurate experimental and statistical procedures.
- Results: Tests A and B using Figures 1, 2, and 3 supported the conclusion that mental states follow quantum mechanics during ambiguous perception and cognition.The study characterizes this conclusion as robust.
- Results: Stroop-effect tests evidenced quantum interference when semantic conflict was induced during perception.This result was presented as further strong indication of possible quantum-like behavior.
Discussion
The discussion concludes that perception and cognition of ambiguous figures exhibit quantum-like interference and deviations from classical statistics. It proposes that mental states may be represented by wave functions, enabling quantum-like decision making and three-valued cognition under some conditions.
- Core findings: Perception and cognition of ambiguous figures, including semantic conflict, exhibit quantum-like interference.The results establish quantum-like interference in both ambiguous-figure processing and semantic conflict.
- Theoretical implications: Quantum-like interference indicates that quantum mechanics contributes to the dynamics of mental states and that cognitive systems are fundamentally quantum-like.The proposed quantum representation may provide a basis for quantum decision making.
- Core findings: Cognitive systems produced nonzero interference coefficients, numerically measuring incompatibility among ambiguity-related contexts.These results also showed deviations of cognitive statistics from classical statistics.
- Mental representation: The brain may operate directly with mental wave functions, or probabilistic amplitudes, rather than probabilities of alternatives.The discussion concludes that at least some perceptive-cognitive systems possess quantum-like abilities.
- Cognitive consequences: Under some conditions, emulating quantum dynamics could support three-valued cognition: true, false, and a superposition of true and false.This framework is proposed as an explanation for holding contradictory notions simultaneously, followed usually by collapse to one state.
Experiment n.1
The section references Experiments n. 2 and n. 3, alongside Test A and Test B configurations. It also notes Experiment n. 4 with Test A.
- Experiments n. 2 and n. 3 are referenced in the section.
- Test A and Test B are presented in reciprocal configurations.
- Experiment n. 4 is associated with Test A.