A Double-Slit Experiment with Human Subjects

We study a sequence of “double-slit” experiments designed to perform repeated measurements of an attribute in a large pool of subjects using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Our findings contrast the prescriptions of decision theory in novel and interesting ways. The response to an identical sequel measurement of the same attribute can be at significant variance with the initial measurement. Furthermore, the response to the sequel measurement depends on whether the initial measurement has taken place. In the absence of the initial measurement, the sequel measurement reveals additional variability, leading to a multimodal frequency distribution reminiscent of an interference pattern, which is largely absent if the first measurement has taken place.

我们开展了一系列“双缝（double-slit）”实验，旨在借助亚马逊机械 Turk（Mechanical Turk）平台，对海量受试对象的某一属性开展重复测量。我们的研究发现以新颖且富有启发性的方式，与决策理论的预设结论形成了鲜明对照。针对同一属性的完全相同的后续测量，其结果可能与初始测量存在显著偏差。此外，后续测量的结果还取决于初始测量是否已实施。若未开展初始测量，后续测量会呈现出额外的变异性，进而形成类似干涉图样的多峰频率分布；而若已完成首次测量，则该分布特征基本消失。