Quantum Theory Beyond the Physical: Information in Context

Kitto, Kirsty; Ramm, Brentyn J.; Sitbon, Laurianne; Bruza, Peter

doi:10.1007/s10516-010-9144-6

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It is widely recognized that the standard analytical techniques of science are not up to the challenge of modeling these contextual effects. When concepts appear in the context of each other, their meanings change in ways that are non-compositional, i.e., they behave in ways that violate the rules of classical logic (Osherson & Smith, 1981;Hampton, 1987;Kitto, 2006Kitto, , 2008aAerts, 2009;Kitto, Ramm, Sitbon, & Bruza, 2011). Despite its potential im-pact, this challenge is not as insurmountable as it might at first seem, as there is one mathematical formalism which was invented precisely to describe such contextuality; Quantum Theory (QT).…”

Section: Mathematical Modeling Of Recursive Re-description: An Idea Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept Combination and the Origins of Complex Cognition

Gabora

Kitto

2012

Biosemiotics

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At the core of our uniquely human cognitive abilities is the capacity to see things from different perspectives, or to place them in a new context. We propose that this was made possible by two cognitive transitions. First, the large brain of Homo erectus facilitated the onset of recursive recall: the ability to string thoughts together into a stream of potentially abstract or imaginative thought. This hypothesis is supported by a set of computational models where an artificial society of agents evolved to generate more diverse and valuable cultural outputs under conditions of recursive recall. We propose that the capacity to see things in context arose much later, following the appearance of anatomically modern humans. This second transition was brought on by the onset of contextual focus: the capacity to shift between a minimally contextual analytic mode of thought, and a highly contextual associative mode of thought, conducive to combining concepts in new ways and ‗breaking out of a rut'. When contextual focus is implemented in an art-generating computer program, the resulting artworks are seen as more creative and appealing. We summarize how both transitions can be modeled using a theory of concepts which highlights the manner in which different contexts can lead to modern humans attributing very different meanings to the interpretation of one concept.What is the essence of our human-ness? We propose that what is at the core of our uniquely human cognitive abilities is the capacity to place things in context, or see things from different perspectives. This enables us to be not just creative, but to put our own spin on the inventions of others, modifying them to suit our own needs and tastes, in turn leading to new innovations that build cumulatively on previous

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Section: Mathematical Modeling Of Recursive Re-description: An Idea Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept Combination and the Origins of Complex Cognition

Gabora

Kitto

2012

Biosemiotics

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“…One derives from modern approaches to information retrieval which attempt to incorporate a sophisticated notion of context into the classification of information as relevant to a query ( [1], [2], [3], [4]). The second approach is more squarely based in cognitive science, and uses a quantum approach to model concepts and their combinations ( [5], [6], [7], [8]).…”

Section: Memory Structure and Information Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A quantum information retrieval approach to memory

Kitto

Bruza

Gabora

2012

The 2012 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

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As computers approach the physical limits of information storable in memory, new methods will be needed to further improve information storage and retrieval. We propose a quantum inspired vector based approach, which offers a contextually dependent mapping from the subsymbolic to the symbolic representations of information. If implemented computationally, this approach would provide exceptionally high density of information storage, without the traditionally required physical increase in storage capacity. The approach is inspired by the structure of human memory and incorporates elements of Gärdenfors' Conceptual Space approach and Humphreys et al.'s matrix model of memory.

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“…In particular, the apparent contextuality exhibited by words makes probabilistic models of language difficult to construct. While Bayesian models have met with some success [2], this paper will discuss an alternative approach that utilises the probability structure of Quantum Theory (QT) to model the behaviour of words in the human mental lexicon [3,4,5].…”

Section: Modelling the Human Mental Lexiconmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The remainder of this paper will briefly sketch out recent work which attempts to test for such non-compositional behaviour in conceptual combination [3,4,5].…”

Section: A Quantum-like Model Of Human Word Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this case, a concept combination (like boxer bat) should be considered compositional if it is possible to model it only with reference to its parts (possibly combined in some functional form). In a set of recent work [9,4,5] we have performed a number of experiments aimed at testing the compositional hypothesis. In these experiments, subjects are first primed by exposure to words that have a particular sense with regards to the second stage, where they are presented with a bi-ambiguous concept combination.…”

Section: Quantum Tests Of (Non-)compositionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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