A Quantum Geometric Model of Similarity

No other study has had as great an impact on the development of the similarity literature as that of Tversky (1977) , which provided compelling demonstrations against all the fundamental assumptions of the popular, and extensively employed, geometric similarity models. Notably, similarity judgments...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological review 2013-07, Vol.120 (3), p.679-696
Main Authors: Pothos, Emmanuel M, Busemeyer, Jerome R, Trueblood, Jennifer S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition. Intelligence
Decision making. Choice
Developmental psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Geometry
Human
Humans
Judgement
Judgment - physiology
Models, Theoretical
Probability
Probability theory
Psychologists
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Quantitative psychology
Quantum physics
Quantum Theory
Source studies
Stimulus Similarity
Tversky, Amos
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Summary:No other study has had as great an impact on the development of the similarity literature as that of Tversky (1977) , which provided compelling demonstrations against all the fundamental assumptions of the popular, and extensively employed, geometric similarity models. Notably, similarity judgments were shown to violate symmetry and the triangle inequality and also be subject to context effects, so that the same pair of items would be rated differently, depending on the presence of other items. Quantum theory provides a generalized geometric approach to similarity and can address several of Tversky's main findings. Similarity is modeled as quantum probability, so that asymmetries emerge as order effects, and the triangle equality violations and the diagnosticity effect can be related to the context-dependent properties of quantum probability. We so demonstrate the promise of the quantum approach for similarity and discuss the implications for representation theory in general.
ISSN:0033-295X
1939-1471
DOI:10.1037/a0033142