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Generalizing Prototype Theory : A Formal Quantum Framework Aerts, Diederik, 1953-; Broekaert, Jan; Gabora, Liane; Sozzo, Sandro

Abstract

Theories of natural language and concepts have been unable to model the flexibility, creativity, context-dependence, and emergence, exhibited by words, concepts and their combinations. The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has instead been successful in capturing these phenomena such as graded membership, situational meaning, composition of categories, and also more complex decision making situations, which cannot be modeled in traditional probabilistic approaches. We show how a formal quantum approach to concepts and their combinations can provide a powerful extension of prototype theory. We explain how prototypes can interfere in conceptual combinations as a consequence of their contextual interactions, and provide an illustration of this using an intuitive wave-like diagram. This quantum-conceptual approach gives new life to original prototype theory, without however making it a privileged concept theory, as we explain at the end of our paper.

Item Metadata

Title
Generalizing Prototype Theory : A Formal Quantum Framework
Creator
Aerts, Diederik, 1953-; Broekaert, Jan; Gabora, Liane; Sozzo, Sandro
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Date Issued
2016-03-30
Description
Theories of natural language and concepts have been unable to model the flexibility, creativity, context-dependence, and emergence, exhibited by words, concepts and their combinations. The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has instead been successful in capturing these phenomena such as graded membership, situational meaning, composition of categories, and also more complex decision making situations, which cannot be modeled in traditional probabilistic approaches. We show how a formal quantum approach to concepts and their combinations can provide a powerful extension of prototype theory. We explain how prototypes can interfere in conceptual combinations as a consequence of their contextual interactions, and provide an illustration of this using an intuitive wave-like diagram. This quantum-conceptual approach gives new life to original prototype theory, without however making it a privileged concept theory, as we explain at the end of our paper.
Subject
cognition; concept theory; prototype theory; contextuality; interference; quantum modeling
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2018-01-12
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0363017
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64348
Affiliation
Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan); Psychology, Department of (Okanagan)
Citation
Aerts, D., Broekaert, J., Gabora, L., & Sozzo, S. (2016). Generalizing Prototype Theory: A Formal Quantum Framework. Frontiers in Psychology, 7
Publisher DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00418
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International