Thesis Defence: Quantum Equality in the Courtroom

Magpie Winslow, supervised by Dr. Leanne ten Brinke, will defend their thesis titled “Quantum Equality in the Courtroom” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology – Psychological Science.

An abstract for Magpie Winslow’s thesis is included below.

Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in person defences.

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ABSTRACT

Survivors of sexual assault are often pitted against their alleged attacker in a contest of credibility. However, there is little research on the relationship between the survivor’s credibility and the attacker’s. The present study investigates this relationship using a model from quantum cognition called the QQ equality. This model predicts that the order of credibility judgements is important and that judgements about the survivor impact the alleged attacker’s credibility to the same degree that judgements about the alleged attacker impact the survivor’s credibility. A sample (n = 1493) of US adults were asked to judge the credibility of statements from both the survivor and attacker in hypothetical cases of sexual assault. Contrary to predictions, there was no effect of judgment order on the perceived credibility of either party. However, correlations between random subsamples did provide evidence of the QQ equality. These results suggest that the two judgements neither share a feature space nor exist in separate spaces; instead, they may exist in feature spaces with both unique and shared components. This study’s findings suggest that further research into modelling feature spaces may provide insight into factors impacting a survivor’s perceived credibility.