Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

September 14, 2011

Don’t trust your instincts

Filed under: Data Analysis,Language,Recognition,Research Methods — Patrick Durusau @ 7:04 pm

I stumbled upon a review of: “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us” by James W. Pennebaker in the New York Times Book Review, 28 August 2011.

Pennebaker is a word counter who first rule is: “Don’t trust your instincts.”

Why? In part because our expectations shape our view of the data. (sound familiar?)

The review quotes the Druge Report as posting a headline about President Obama that reads: “I ME MINE: Obama praises C.I.A. for bin Laden raid – while saying ‘I’ 35 Times.”

If the listener thinks President Obama is self-centered, the “I’s” have it as it were.

But, Pennebaker has used his programs to mindlessly count usage of words in press conferences since Truman. Obama is the lowest user I-word user of modern presidents.

That is only one illustration of how badly we can “look” at text or data and get it seriously wrong.

The Secret Life of Pronouns website has exercises to demonstrate how badly we get things wrong. (The videos are very entertaining.)

What does that mean for topic maps and authoring topic maps?

  1. Don’t trust your instincts. (courtesy of Pennebaker)
  2. View your data in different ways, ask unexpected questions.
  3. Ask people unfamiliar with your data how they view it.
  4. Read books on subjects you know nothing about. (Just general good advice.)
  5. Ask known unconventional people to question your data/subjects. (Like me! Sorry, consulting plug.)

1 Comment

  1. […] will recall from Don’t Trust Your Instincts that we are likely to see what we expect to see in text, or in this case, networks. Not that using […]

    Pingback by Active Learning for Node Classification in Assortative and Disassortative Networks « Another Word For It — September 16, 2011 @ 6:42 pm

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