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Human Language Is Biased Towards Happiness, Say Computational Linguists

35 points by sytelus 12y ago

Kronopath 12y ago
Interesting how the thesis of the article is the exact opposite of the thesis of this one, which was posted to HN a few days ago: http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/humans-are-wired-for-negativity-for-good-or-ill/ http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/humans-are-wired-for-nega...
- gregwebs 12y ago
  That article talks about vocabulary. One would naturally assume that vocabulary correlates with frequency of usage, but that may not be the case. This article talks about frequency of usage. Perhaps someone can dig deeper and figure out where they get their frequency of usage data from?
  - trendoid 12y ago
    If they are scanning novels and lyrics in various languages, there is also an interpretation that musicians and writers have in general written more positive words in their work. This can be part of art instead of something inherit to language.
- tedks 12y ago
  If you're really confused, the aeon one is the better one scientifically, and reviews a much larger array of science from a number of domains, rather than scanning google books.
davidtotoole 12y ago
Computational Linguists are Biased Toward Computers, Say Happy Humans
devindotcom 12y ago
Doesn't this only suggest that most people are biased towards happy "personal interpretations" of words? That's a conclusion about people, not "human language," whatever that is.
- lukasb 12y ago
  there's a huge Sapir-Whorf bias in a lot of philosophy, critical theory and social science which I totally don't get.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
lettergram 12y ago
If you google search positive term dictionaries vs negative term dictionaries you'll find the negative term dictionary is 5x - 10x larger. Point being, we have many more terms to describe negative events. Likely, this means we have a large biased towards negativity. As Kronopath mentioned, there is definitely research out there describing the exact opposite of this article.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  I don't think you can backsolve for Sapir-Whorf.
kazinator 12y ago
Four days ago we saw the submission "Humans are wired for negativity": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275688 But language is biased toward happiness but its users are wired for negativity. What does that mean? We are negative, but through language, are trying to kid ourselves otherwise?
- tedks 12y ago
  This submission is about counting words on Google Books and other online sources. The other one reviews a few decades of research in psychology. I would say that books that are happier sell more, so there are more of them written.
gojomo 12y ago
So very interesting! I'm sure they got sarcasm right, and all the cases where humans damn with faint praise. A gold star for everyone involved!
kylebgorman 12y ago
Peter Dodds, the leader of the team in question, isn't a computational linguist. I just read his CV and he has zero publications in CL journals or proceedings, and his Ph.D. is in mathematics.

35 points by sytelus 12y ago

Interesting how the thesis of the article is the exact opposite of the thesis of this one, which was posted to HN a few days ago: http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/humans-are-wired-for-negativity-for-good-or-ill/ http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/humans-are-wired-for-nega...

gregwebs 12y ago
That article talks about vocabulary. One would naturally assume that vocabulary correlates with frequency of usage, but that may not be the case. This article talks about frequency of usage. Perhaps someone can dig deeper and figure out where they get their frequency of usage data from?
- trendoid 12y ago
  If they are scanning novels and lyrics in various languages, there is also an interpretation that musicians and writers have in general written more positive words in their work. This can be part of art instead of something inherit to language.
tedks 12y ago
If you're really confused, the aeon one is the better one scientifically, and reviews a much larger array of science from a number of domains, rather than scanning google books.

davidtotoole 12y ago

Computational Linguists are Biased Toward Computers, Say Happy Humans

devindotcom 12y ago

Doesn't this only suggest that most people are biased towards happy "personal interpretations" of words? That's a conclusion about people, not "human language," whatever that is.

lukasb 12y ago
there's a huge Sapir-Whorf bias in a lot of philosophy, critical theory and social science which I totally don't get.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

lettergram 12y ago

If you google search positive term dictionaries vs negative term dictionaries you'll find the negative term dictionary is 5x - 10x larger. Point being, we have many more terms to describe negative events. Likely, this means we have a large biased towards negativity. As Kronopath mentioned, there is definitely research out there describing the exact opposite of this article.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
I don't think you can backsolve for Sapir-Whorf.

kazinator 12y ago

Four days ago we saw the submission "Humans are wired for negativity": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8275688 But language is biased toward happiness but its users are wired for negativity. What does that mean? We are negative, but through language, are trying to kid ourselves otherwise?

tedks 12y ago
This submission is about counting words on Google Books and other online sources. The other one reviews a few decades of research in psychology. I would say that books that are happier sell more, so there are more of them written.

gojomo 12y ago

So very interesting! I'm sure they got sarcasm right, and all the cases where humans damn with faint praise. A gold star for everyone involved!

kylebgorman 12y ago

Peter Dodds, the leader of the team in question, isn't a computational linguist. I just read his CV and he has zero publications in CL journals or proceedings, and his Ph.D. is in mathematics.