Temporal Bell inequalities in cognition

There is widespread evidence that human memory is constructive, so that recollective processes may alter the information retrieved or impact on subsequent recollections. We examine a framework for narrowing down the nature of such processes, from physics. In Physics, the Temporal Bell (TB) inequality offers a general test of the sensitivity of the context of previous measurements in sequential measurement scenarios, as predicted by quantum theory. We present an empirical memory paradigm that allows a test of the TB inequality, using a novel kind of "change judgment," whereby participants are asked to decide whether there has been a change in a question across different time points of a scenario. Across two experiments, we were able to observe evidence for the violation of a TB inequality in one case, offering evidence for quantum-like processes in memory. The present results complement other recent work purporting the relevance of quantum-like representations in memory and raise questions regarding the adaptive value of such representations.