Modeling Concept Combinations in a Quantum-theoretic Framework
This work addresses the challenge of understanding conceptual combinations in cognitive science, offering a new perspective on vagueness and quantum structures in human thought, though it appears incremental in applying quantum theory to this domain.
The authors tackled the problem of modeling concept combinations by using a quantum-theoretic framework, which accurately described experimental data on concept conjunctions and disjunctions and proposed a novel solution to the 'combination problem' in concept theory.
We present modeling for conceptual combinations which uses the mathematical formalism of quantum theory. Our model faithfully describes a large amount of experimental data collected by different scholars on concept conjunctions and disjunctions. Furthermore, our approach sheds a new light on long standing drawbacks connected with vagueness, or fuzziness, of concepts, and puts forward a completely novel possible solution to the 'combination problem' in concept theory. Additionally, we introduce an explanation for the occurrence of quantum structures in the mechanisms and dynamics of concepts and, more generally, in cognitive and decision processes, according to which human thought is a well structured superposition of a 'logical thought' and a 'conceptual thought', and the latter usually prevails over the former, at variance with some widespread beliefs