I’d like to pose an experimental question rather than present a new theory of mind.
Suppose we have two longitudinal human–LLM interactions where we control for:
- model and version;
- system prompt;
- information available about the participant;
- memory and retrieval;
- degree of personalization;
- accessible context.
The main difference is that one dyad retains its own interaction history, while the other receives an equivalent amount of relevant information drawn from a different or yoked history.
Should we expect the two conditions to become functionally equivalent?
Or can the temporal organization of a specific interaction history retain predictive information that is not captured simply by making the same content available?
This is the question I have been trying to formalize through a framework I called the Shared Cognitive Field (CCC / Campo Cognitivo Condiviso).
By “field” I do not mean a physical field, a shared consciousness, or a new entity.
I use the term as shorthand for a possible structure of observable dependencies at the level of interaction.
The starting point is not especially exotic. It draws on existing work in extended cognition, distributed cognition, interactive alignment, and coordination in dialogue.
Recent work on LLM interaction makes the competing explanations particularly important. Humans adapt their communication strategies when interacting with LLMs; LLMs can adapt linguistically to conversational partners; and external memory/retrieval systems can already produce substantial continuity and personalization.
I therefore treat these mechanisms as competing baselines, not as evidence for the framework.
The modest hypothesis is:
In 2025 I proposed a provisional composite measure, CQI(t), involving shared information, predictive coherence, interactional coordination, stability after perturbation, and affective-relational alignment.
I do not regard CQI as a validated metric. Its proxies, weights, and factor structure would all need empirical testing.
A simple design I am considering would compare four conditions after a longitudinal interaction phase:
A — Original dyad
Same participant, same interaction history.
B — Yoked-history control
Same amount of relevant information, but derived from another dyad’s history.
C — Memory-ablated control
Same dyad, but without access to longitudinal memory.
D — Partner-swap control
Comparable informational state, different human partner.
A controlled perturbation could then be introduced.
Possible outcome measures might include:
- prediction of the partner’s next-turn intention or decision;
- number of turns required to repair misunderstandings;
- collaborative task performance;
- ability to recover the correct prior rationale behind a decision;
- recovery of coordination after perturbation.
The discriminating prediction would be straightforward:
If interaction history contributes nothing beyond available information, the original dyad should show no systematic advantage over a well-matched yoked control.
If that is what the data show, the relational construct should be reduced or discarded.
If a replicable residual effect remains, I would not interpret it as “shared consciousness” or strong emergence.
The next question would simply be:
What interaction-level variable have we failed to model?
One transparency note: the original Zenodo paper from November 2025 contains some stronger exploratory language, including a numerical threshold associated with a phenomenological concept I called Noosemia.
I no longer regard that threshold as empirically established.
In the current framing, both CQI and Noosemia are provisional hypotheses requiring validation.
So my question to r/cogsci is fairly concrete:
Is there already an established construct in cognitive science, HCI, or dialogue research that makes this proposed “interaction-history effect” unnecessary?
And if not:
What is the simplest experiment that could falsify it?
Original paper, for provenance:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17672256
Disclosure: AI tools have been used during drafting, translation, and critical review of this project. I take responsibility for the claims, references, and proposed methodology.