Generalizing Prototype Theory: A Formal Quantum Framework

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum formalism to extend prototype theory, capturing complex phenomena like context-dependence and emergence in natural language concepts through interference effects.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum framework that models concept combinations and their contextual interactions, enhancing traditional prototype theory with interference phenomena.

Findings

Quantum approach models concept interference effects

Provides wave-like diagram illustration of concept interactions

Extends prototype theory with quantum formalism

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.