Selectivity in Probabilistic Causality: Where Psychology Runs Into Quantum Physics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a criterion and linear programming test for determining influence patterns in systems with multiple inputs and outputs, bridging concepts from quantum physics and behavioral sciences.

Contribution

It adapts the Joint Distribution Criterion and Linear Feasibility Test from quantum physics to analyze selective influences in behavioral experiments.

Findings

The Linear Feasibility Test can verify influence patterns efficiently.

The Joint Distribution Criterion provides a necessary and sufficient condition for selectivity.

Quantum physics concepts can be applied to behavioral science problems.

Abstract

Given a set of several inputs into a system (e.g., independent variables characterizing stimuli) and a set of several stochastically non-independent outputs (e.g., random variables describing different aspects of responses), how can one determine, for each of the outputs, which of the inputs it is influenced by? The problem has applications ranging from modeling pairwise comparisons to reconstructing mental processing architectures to conjoint testing. A necessary and sufficient condition for a given pattern of selective influences is provided by the Joint Distribution Criterion, according to which the problem of "what influences what" is equivalent to that of the existence of a joint distribution for a certain set of random variables. For inputs and outputs with finite sets of values this criterion translates into a test of consistency of a certain system of linear equations and inequalities (Linear Feasibility Test) which can be performed by means of linear programming. While new in the behavioral context, both this test and the Joint Distribution Criterion on which it is based have been previously proposed in quantum physics, in dealing with generalizations of Bell inequalities for the quantum entanglement problem. The parallels between this problem and that of selective influences in behavioral sciences is established by observing that noncommuting measurements in quantum physics are mutually exclusive and can therefore be treated as different levels of one and the same factor.