Verification Cost Asymmetry in Cognitive Warfare: A Complexity-Theoretic Framework

TL;DR

This paper introduces a complexity-theoretic framework for cognitive warfare, quantifying verification effort asymmetries between trusted and adversarial populations, with practical protocols and empirical validation for content authentication and platform governance.

Contribution

It formalizes the Verification Cost Asymmetry coefficient, combining PCP and complexity theory to create protocols that minimize verification effort for trusted users while increasing costs for adversaries.

Findings

Verification effort can be significantly reduced for trusted audiences.

Adversaries face superlinear verification costs without cryptographic infrastructure.

The framework is validated through user studies and real-world information campaign encoding.

Abstract

Human verification under adversarial information flow operates as a cost-bounded decision procedure constrained by working memory limits and cognitive biases. We introduce the Verification Cost Asymmetry (VCA) coefficient, formalizing it as the ratio of expected verification work between populations under identical claim distributions. Drawing on probabilistically checkable proofs (PCP) and parameterized complexity theory, we construct dissemination protocols that reduce verification for trusted audiences to constant human effort while imposing superlinear costs on adversarial populations lacking cryptographic infrastructure. We prove theoretical guarantees for this asymmetry, validate the framework through controlled user studies measuring verification effort with and without spot-checkable provenance, and demonstrate practical encoding of real-world information campaigns. The results establish complexity-theoretic foundations for engineering democratic advantage in cognitive warfare, with immediate applications to content authentication, platform governance, and information operations doctrine.