Collaborative Research: Quantum Decision Theory

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Ever since Tversky and Kahneman's influential research exposing the failures of classical probability theory to describe human reasoning under uncertainty (1974), decision researchers gave up almost all hope to find an axiomatic foundation for understanding human judgments and decisions. Instead, they turned to the idea of using tool boxes of heuristics to explain myriad decision bias and errors. The project will further develop a new theoretical application of quantum probability theory (the mathematical foundation of quantum theory) to human judgment and decision making. Quantum probability theory fundamentally differs from classical probability theory. The critical question is which set of probability rules provides a better description of human judgment and decision. In the Principal Investigators' past several years of research supported by NSF, they have shown that quantum probability theory provides an innovative, coherent, and mathematically principled approach to account for many paradoxical findings in judgment and decision research (i.e., conjunction and disjunction errors, interference effects, question order effects). The current project will further develop and test a consistent quantum probability account of violations of classic probability rules found in question order effects. The investigators will extend the quantum model for order effects to make a priori predictions about the direction of order effects and also to be able to account for measures with multiple ordinal levels. The broad and long term goal of this research program is to break new ground and pioneer a new path by building probabilistic and dynamic systems for social and behavioral sciences from quantum rather than classical probability principles. This project will study whether it matters in what order questions are asked on a survey. The investigators regularly organize workshops on quantum probability models of cognition at annual meetings of Cognitive Science Society and Society for Mathematical Psychology. They have organized two special journal issues on the topic: one appeared in the Journal of Mathematical Psychology (2009) and the other is forthcoming in Topics in Cognitive Science. Their work has been cited across disciplines, ranging from cognitive science, decision science, economics, engineering, to mathematics, physics, and astronomy.