Tracking the Consumption Junction: Temporal Dependencies between Articles and Advertisements in Dutch Newspapers

Historians have regularly debated whether advertisements can be used as a viable source to study the past. Their main concern centered on the question of agency. Were advertisements a reflection of historical events and societal debates, or were ad makers instrumental in shaping society and the ways people interacted with consumer goods? Using techniques from econometrics (Granger causality test) and complexity science (Adaptive Fractal Analysis), this paper analyzes to what extent advertisements shaped or reflected society. We found evidence that indicate a fundamental difference between the dynamic behavior of word use in articles and advertisements published in a century of Dutch newspapers. Articles exhibit persistent trends that are likely to be reflective of communicative memory. Contrary to this, advertisements have a more irregular behavior characterized by short bursts and fast decay, which, in part, mirrors the dynamic through which advertisers introduced terms into public discourse. On the issue of whether advertisements shaped or reflected society, we found particular product types that seemed to be collectively driven by a causality going from advertisements to articles. Generally, we found support for a complex interaction pattern dubbed the consumption junction. Finally, we discovered noteworthy patterns in terms of causality and long-range dependencies for specific product groups. All in, this study shows how methods from econometrics and complexity science can be applied to humanities data to improve our understanding of complex cultural-historical phenomena such as the role of advertising in society

Tid, betydning og ritualdynamik

Udgangspunktet for denne artikel er brugen af ’fjerne faktorer’ i evolutionære tilgange til religion og ritualer, særligt gen-selektionismen. Artiklen argumenterer for, at evolutionsteori peger på nye muligheder for generalisering inden for religions- og ritualstudier, men at ’nære faktorer’ såsom betydning og oplevelse er vigtige for undersøgelsen af, hvordan kommunikativ og ritualiseret adfærd fungerer gennem tid. Til sidst bruges et etologisk feltstudie til at illustrere, hvordan ritualisering skaber saliente adfærdsfænomener, der igangsætter betydningsdannelse og frigør deltagerne fra deres umiddelbare adfærdsdispositioner

MULTILINGUAL SENTIMENT NORMALIZATION FOR SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES

In this paper, we address the challenge of multilingual sentiment analysis using a traditional lexicon and rule-based sentiment instrument that is tailored to capture sentiment patterns in a particular language. Focusing on a case study of three closely related Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) and using three tailored versions of VADER, we measure the relative degree of variation in valence using the OPUS corpus. We found that scores for Swedish are systematically skewed lower than Danish for translational pairs, and that scores for Norwegian are skewed higher for both other languages. We use a neural network to optimize the fit between Norwegian and Swedish respectively and Danish as the reference (target) language

Predictive minds in Ouija board sessions

Andersen M, Nielbo KL, Schjoedt U, Pfeiffer T, Roepstorff A, Sørensen J. Predictive minds in Ouija board sessions. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 2018;18(3):577-588.Ouija board sessions are illustrious examples of how subjective feelings of control the Sense of Agency (SoA) - can be manipulated in real life settings. We present findings from a field experiment at a paranormal conference, where Ouija enthusiasts were equipped with eye trackers while using the Ouija board. Our results show that participants have a significantly lower probability at visually predicting letters in a Ouija board session compared to a condition in which they are instructed to deliberately spell out words with the Ouija board planchette. Our results also show that Ouija board believers report lower SoA compared to sceptic participants. These results support previous research which claim that low sense of agency is caused by a combination of retrospective inference and an inhibition of predictive processes. Our results show that users in Ouija board sessions become increasingly better at predicting letters as responses unfold over time, and that meaningful responses from the Ouija board can only be accounted for when considering interactions that goes on at the participant pair level. These results suggest that meaningful responses from the Ouija board may be an emergent property of interacting and predicting minds that increasingly impose structure on initially random events in Ouija sessions

Danish Foundation Models

Large language models, sometimes referred to as foundation models, have transformed multiple fields of research. However, smaller languages risk falling behind due to high training costs and small incentives for large companies to train these models. To combat this, the Danish Foundation Models project seeks to provide and maintain open, well-documented, and high-quality foundation models for the Danish language. This is achieved through broad cooperation with public and private institutions, to ensure high data quality and applicability of the trained models. We present the motivation of the project, the current status, and future perspectives.Comment: 4 pages, 2 table