IonQ announced results from its early research into applying quantum computers for modeling human cognition. The recently published paper describes the world's first publicly known method in which basic human cognition models have been run on quantum hardware, paving the way to the potential development of improved decision making models that imitate human thought. Conducted in collaboration with an international team of quantum researchers, the research paper represents a starting point for developing quantum circuits that implement mathematical models of cognition, encoding mental states in qubit registers and cognitive operations using different gates and measurements.

Since the 1960s, cognitive psychologists have sought to understand the correlation between the ways questions are posed and how a participant would respond. The concept of quantum probability effectively describes some of these relationships, however it wasn't until recently that quantum hardware reached the point where quantum probability models could be investigated and tested.