Profiling a set of personality traits of text author: what our words reveal about us

Tatiana Litvinova; Pavel Seredin; Olga Litvinova; Olga Zagorovskaya

doi:10.1515/rela-2016-0019

Authors

Tatiana Litvinova Voronezh State Pedagogical University
Pavel Seredin
Olga Litvinova
Olga Zagorovskaya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/rela-2016-0019

Keywords:

authorship profiling, neurolinguistics, language personality, computational stylometry, discourse production

Abstract

Authorship profiling, i.e. revealing information about an unknown author by analyzing their text, is a task of growing importance. One of the most urgent problems of authorship profiling (AP) is selecting text parameters which may correlate to an author’s personality. Most researchers’ selection of these is not underpinned by any theory. This article proposes an approach to AP which applies neuroscience data. The aim of the study is to assess the probability of selfdestructive behaviour of an individual via formal parameters of their texts. Here we have used the “Personality Corpus”, which consists of Russian-language texts. A set of correlations between scores on the Freiburg Personality Inventory scales that are known to be indicative of self-destructive behaviour (“Spontaneous Aggressiveness”, “Depressiveness”, “Emotional Lability”, and “Composedness”) and text variables (average sentence length, lexical diversity etc.) has been calculated. Further, a mathematical model which predicts the probability of selfdestructive behaviour has been obtained.

References

Angst, J. and P. Clayton. 1986. Premorbid Personality of Depressive, Bipolar, and Schizophrenic Patients with Special Reference to Suicidal Issues. Comprehensive Psychiatry 27(6). 511‒532.
Google Scholar

Argamon, S. et al. 2009. Automatically profiling the author of an anonymous text. Communications of the ACM 52(2). 119‒123.
Google Scholar

Baddeley, J. L., Daniel, G. R. and J. W. Pennebaker. 2011. How Henry Hellyer’s Use of Language Foretold His Suicide. Crisis 32 (5). 288‒292.
Google Scholar

Bloom, L. R. et al. 1994. Hemispheric Responsibility and Discourse Production: Contrasting Patients with Unilateral Left and Right Hemisphere Damage. In L. R. Bloom, L. K. Obler, S. D. Santi and J. S. Ehrlich (eds.). Discourse Analysis and Applications: Studies in Adult Clinical Populations, 91-94. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Google Scholar

Chung, C. K. and J. W. Pennebaker. 2009. The psychological functions of function words. In K. Fiedler (ed.), Social communication, 343-359. New York: Psychology Press.
Google Scholar

Demjen, Z. 2015. Sylvia Plath and the Language of Affective States: Written Discourse and the Experience of Depression. Bloomsbury.
Google Scholar

Fernбndez-Cabana, M. et al. 2013. Suicidal Traits in Marilyn Monroe’s Fragments: An LIWC Analysis. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention 34(2). 124‒130.
Google Scholar

Fotekova, T. A. and T. V. Akhutina. 2002. Diagnostika rechevikh narushenii shkol’nikov s ispol’zovaniem neiropsikhologicheskikh metodov [Detecting Speech Impediments in School Children Using Neuropsychological Methods]. Moscow: ARKTI.
Google Scholar

Handelman, L. D. and D. Lester. 2007. The Content of Suicide Notes from Attempters and Completers. Crisis 28, 102‒104.
Google Scholar

Joiner, T. E., Brown, J. S. and L. R. Jr. Wingate. 2005. The Psychology and Neurobiology of Suicidal Behaviour. Annu Rev Psychol 56. 287‒314.
Google Scholar

Jones, N. and C. Bennell. 2007. The Development and Validation of Statistical Prediction Rules for Discriminating Between Genuine and Simulated Suicide Notes. Archives of Suicide Research: Official Journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research 11(2). 219.
Google Scholar

Koppel, M., Argamon, S. and A. Shimoni. 2003. Automatically Categorizing Written Texts by Author Gender. Lit and Ling Computing 17(4). 401‒412.
Google Scholar

Lester, D. 2014. The ”I” of the Storm: Understanding the Suicidal Mind. De Gruyter Open Ltd.
Google Scholar

Lightman, E. J. et al. 2007. Using Computational Text Analysis Tools to Compare the Lyrics of Suicidal and non-suicidal Songwriters. In D. S. McNamara & G. Trafton (eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Cognitive Science Society, 1217-1222. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Google Scholar

Litvinova, T. A. 2014. Profiling the Author of a Written Text in Russian. Journal of Language and Literature 5(4). 210‒216.
Google Scholar

Litvinova, T. A., Seredin, P. V. and O. A. Litvinova. 2015. Using Part-of-Speech Sequences Frequencies in a Text to Predict Author Personality: a Corpus Study. Indian Journal of Science and Technology 8(9). 93‒97.
Google Scholar

Long, D. L., et al. 2012. The Organization of Discourse in the Brain: Results from the Item-Priming-in-Recognition Paradigm. In M. Faust (ed.), The Handbook of the Neuropsychology of Language, 77‒99. Wiley-Blackwell.
Google Scholar

Marciсczuk, M., Zaњko-Zieliсska, M. and M. Piasecki. 2011. Structure Annotation in the Polish Corpus of Suicide Notes. In I. Habernal and V. Matoušek (ed.), Text, Speech and Dialogue. 14th International Conference, TSD 2011, Pilsen, Czech Republic, September 1-5, 2011. Proceedings, 419‒426. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Google Scholar

Nini, A. 2014. Authorship Profiling in a Forensic Context. PhD thesis. Aston University. Noecker Jr, J. W., Ryan, M. and P. Juola. 2013. Psychological Profiling Through Textual Analysis. Lit Linguist Computing 28(3). 382‒387.
Google Scholar

Oborneva, I. V. 2005. Avtomatizatsiia otsenki kachestva vostriiatiya vospriiatiya teksta [Automatisation of the Assessment of Perception of a Text]. Vestnik Moskovskogo gorodskogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta [Herald Journal of Moscow State Pedagogical University] 2(5). 86‒92.
Google Scholar

Pennebaker, J. W. 2011. The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Google Scholar

Pennebaker, J. W., Mehl, M. R. and K. Niederhoffer. 2003. Psychological Aspects of Natural Language Use: Our Words, Our Selves. Annual Review of Psychology 54. 547‒577.
Google Scholar

Pennebaker, J. W. and L. D. Stone. 2004. What Was She Trying To Say? A Linguistic Analysis of Katie’s Diaries. In D. Lester (ed.), Katie’s Diary: Unlocking the Mystery of a Suicide, 55‒80. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Google Scholar

Pestian, J. et al. 2010. Suicide Note Classification Using Natural Language Processing: A Content Analysis. Biomed Inform Insights 3. 19‒28.
Google Scholar

Pilyagina, G. Ya. 2003. Mekhanismi suitsidogeneza i otsenka suitsidal’nogo riska pri razlichnikh formah autoagressivnogo povedeniya [Mechanisms of Suicidogenesis and Assessments of Suicidal Risks in Different Forms of Self-destructive Behaviour]. Arhіv psihіatrії [Psychiatry Archives] 9(4). 18‒26.
Google Scholar

Rangel, F. et al. 2014. Overview of the 2nd Author Profiling Task at PAN 2014. In L. Cappellato, N. Ferro, M. Halvey and W. Kraaij (eds.), CLEF 2014 Labs and Workshops, Notebook Papers. CEUR-WS.org, vol. 1180 898‒827.
Google Scholar

Rangel, F. et al. 2015. Overview of the 3rd Author Profiling Task at PAN 2015. In CEUR Workshop Proceedings. [Online] Available from: http://www.sensei-conversation.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2015/09/15-pan@clef.pdf [Accessed: 19.12.2016]
Google Scholar

Rozanov, V. A. 2004. Neirobiologicheskie osnovi suitsidal’nogo povedeniya [Neurobiuological Foundations of Suicidal Behaviour]. Vestnik biologicheskoj psihiatrii [Herald Journal of Biological Psychiatry] 6. [Online] Available from: http://scorcher.ru/neuro/science/data/mem102.php [Accessed: 19.12.2016].
Google Scholar

Rude, S., Gortner, E. M. and J. Pennebaker. 2004. Language use of depressed and depressionvulnerable college students. Cognition and Emotion 18(8). 1121-1133.
Google Scholar

Sakharniy, L. V. 1994. Chelovek i tekst: dve grammatiki teksta [Man and Text: Two Grammars of a Text]. Chelovek – tekst – kul’tura [Man – Text – Culture]. Yekaterinburg. 17‒20.
Google Scholar

Schler, J. et al. 2006. Effects of Age and Gender on Blogging. In Proc. of AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Approaches for Analyzing Weblogs, 199-205. AAAI.
Google Scholar

Sedov, K. F. 2007. Neiropsikholingvistika [Neurolinguistics]. Moscow: Labirint.
Google Scholar

Stirman, S. W. and J. W. Pennebaker. 2001. Word Use in the Poetry of Suicidal and Non-Suicidal Poets. Psychosom Med 63(4). 517‒522.
Google Scholar

Tausczik, Y. R. and J. W. Pennebaker. 2010. The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Methods. Journal of Language And Social Psychology 29(1). 24‒54.
Google Scholar

Yegorov, A. Yu. 1999. Koordinatsiya dejatel’nosti polusharii mozga cheloveka pri osushestvlenii kognitivnikh funktsii [Coordination of the Activities of the Right Hemisphere of the Human Brain]: abstract of thesis for PhD in Medicine. Saint Petersburg.
Google Scholar

Yegorov, A. Yu. and O. V. Ivanov. 2007. Osobennosti individual’nykh profilei funktsional’ noi assimetrii u lits sovershivshikh suitsidal’nuiu popytku [Features of Individual Profiles of Functional AssymetryAsymmetry in Individuals Committed a Suicidal Attempt]. Social and Clinical Psychiatry 2. 20‒24.
Google Scholar