Probabilistic prediction of “irrational” decisions from semantic composition of contexts

Abstract

Difficulties in prognosis of human behavior are due to the complexity of our cognition, routinely breaking the boundaries of classical rationality. The paper solves this problem for the simplest kind of such “irrational” behavior in which a single binary decision is made in three related contexts. Subjective meanings of these contexts relative to the basis decision alternative are represented by three qubit states, borrowed from quantum theory. These states are bound together by linear superpositions, which encode semantic composition of the contexts in the subject’s mind. The resulting theory supplements classical probabilistic model with nonlinear interference factor, accounting for the “irrational”, emotionally-semantic side of intelligence. This model is built for different realizations of two classic experiments used to study behavioral irrationality: the prisoner’s dilemma and the two-stage gambling task. In 24 such realizations, the interference phase is shown to fall in a narrow range of values, encoding regularities of semantic composition of contexts. Extrapolation of this regularity to novel experiments allows using the model in prognostic mode. This possibility is tested on the task of probabilistic prediction of target decision based on the same probability in two other contexts. For the prisoner’s dilemma and the two-stage gambling task the such prognosis has relative errors of 9 and 11% respectively. The proposed approach allows for putting other quantum models of cognition and decision to predictive and interpretable use, whereas its principles also apply to modeling of decisions with larger sets of contexts and behavioral options. By formalizing a novel type of semantic regularities behind “irrational” thinking, models of the present type open prospects for empowering the existing means for socio-economical analytics and prediction.