The Constructive Role of Decisions: Implications from a quantum Approach
Abstract
The last interim report was submitted Jan. 2015. This grant had two objectives. The first was to explore the nature of constructive influences indecision making. The second concerned understanding decision making in Prisoner's Dilemma. **First objective; constructive judgments. This is the idea that sometimes making a decision can alter the underlying relevant mental state. Simply put, if a person is uncertain whether e.g. a radar signal represents a threat or not, then being asked to decide (Does this signal represent a threat?) changes the underlying mental representations. If the person decides that the radar does represent a threat, he/she would perceive it as more threatening, than previously. This is an important idea since it impacts on our understanding of how questions, ratings, other cognitive measurements can actually alter the mental states. Part of the motivation for studying this question is our expertise with quantum theory, an innovative mathematical framework for understanding cognition, which has to predict that the resolution of any e.g. question alters the mental state in a specific way. Up to the point of the first report, we had validated the main idea (as outlined in the grant proposal), with two main publications (appr. six distinct experiments; note, several other outcomes had been produced within this grant). Between the last report and the end of the grant we pursued a mathematically more sophisticated and empirically more ambitious demonstration, which related to the impact of increasing the density of intermediate judgments on an eventual determination. We found, as our model predicted, that a higher density of intermediate judgments slowed down opinion change. We think this finding is important for AFOSR. For example, consider the issue of trust in an autonomous agent: suppose an operator monitors the performance of the agent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1022832
Entities
People
- Emmanuel M. Pothos
Organizations
- City, University of London