van Laer, T.

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              City, University of London Institutional RepositoryCitation: van Laer, T. (2016). Computers evaluating screenplays? Automatic elicitation of narrativity from big data. Paper presented at the Big Data.Big Movies Coference, 22-23 Sep 2016, Potsdam and Berlin, Germany. This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link:  http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/18850/Link to published version: Copyright and reuse: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to.City Research Online:            http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/            publications@city.ac.ukCity Research OnlineComputers Evaluating Screenplays?Automatic Elicitation of Narrativity From Big DataTom van LaerJennifer Edson EscalasStephan LudwigEllis A. van den HendeAgenda:1.Narrativity2.Building narrativity from its elements3.Text mining procedure4.Results5.Lessons learned and still to learnA review of Mystery Adventures, a live action roleplaying game:NarrativityNarrativityGap in narratological research; Stories in our researchPrior research solely provides a valid description of consumer narratives of (hedonic and utilitarian) material purchases.“Material purchases are those made with the primary intention of acquiring a material good: a tangible object that is kept in one’s possession” (van Boven and Gilovich 2003, 1194)Our research focuses on Experiential purchases“those made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience: an event or series of events that one lives through” (van Boven and Gilovich 2003, 1194) Narrative elementswhich describe the experience consumed and recounted by the reviewerNarrativityResearch objectives1. Demonstrate reliable and valid automatic elicitation of narrative elements from big (textual) data2. Extending the conceptual level of framework-building to the empirical level of stories as bodies of texts that can be measured systematically and quantitatively.a) Landscapes of affective and b) cognitive consciousnessDefinition: The extent to which the consumer story recounts an initial event about which a character expresses feelings or thoughts that, in turn, lead to a course of action by a character (Bruner 1986).Proposed effect: Consumers make more inferences and exert more effort to identify characters when a story has well-developed landscapes of consciousness (Feldman et al. 2014).Building narrativity from its elements1. Narrative elements of identifiable charactersa) Temporal embeddingDefinition: The extent to which the consumer story is organized in a temporal sequence and provides causal links between the events that occur (Escalas 1998; Thompson 1997).Proposed effect: Temporally embedded stories determine why consumers translate stories into transporting past-present-future narratives (Adaval, Isbell, and Wyer 2007; Adaval and Wyer 1998; Barthes 1975).b) Spatial embeddingDefinition: The extent to which the consumer story focuses on and explains particular events (Escalas and Bettman 2000).Proposed effect: Especially transporting stories usually pay attention to setting the scene of the narrative world by repeatedly offering illustrations (Gerrig 1993).c) DramaDefinition: The extent to which the canon is breached (Burke 1962).Proposed effect: If consumers strive to understand and explain these breaches, they may experience narrative transportation because more effort leads to more narrative transportation (Nielsen and Escalas 2010).Building narrativity from its elements2. Narrative elements of imaginable plot Progressive genreDefinition: Events continuously improve for characters over the course of the storyline (Gergen and Gergen, 1988). Regressive genreDefinition: Events decline over the course of the storyline (Gergen and Gergen 1988). Stable genreDefinition: Events neither improve nor decline over the course of the storyline (Gergen and Gergen1988). ComedyDefinition: Events start out favorable, deteriorate, and end on a positive note (Gergen and Gergen1995). TragedyDefinition: Events start out unfavorable, ameliorate, and end on a negative note (Freytag 1863/2003).Proposed effect: Emotional story shapes that change over the course of a storyline are more engaging than those that do not alternate in sign (Vonnegut 2005).Building narrativity from its elements3. Narrative elements of genreText mining procedureIdentifiable characters: n-gram operationalisation, representative words, and words in dictionary entryElements Operationalisation Representative wordsWords in dictionary entryLandscape of affectiveconsciousnessNumber of trigrams:motion–affective process–motiondivided by number of sentences in a reviewarrive, car, goabandon, cried, happy168915Landscape of cognitive consciousnessNumber of trigrams:motion–insight–motiondivided by number of sentences in a reviewconsider, know, think 195Text mining procedureImaginable plot: n-gram operationalisation, representative words, and words in dictionary entryElements Operationalisation Representative wordsWords in dictionary entryTemporal embedding Presence of unigrams:time (1)causation (2)time and causation (3)end, season, untilbecause, effect, hence239108Spatial embedding Proportion of space unigrams to other words in a reviewdown, in, thin 220Drama Proportion of surprise unigrams to other words in a reviewamazed, astonished, shocked, startled, stupefied32Text mining procedureGenre: D-gram operationalisation, representative words, and words in dictionary entryElements OperationalisationRepresentative wordsWords in dictionary entryGenre Emotional story shape:absolute difference ofpositive emotion unigram andnegative emotion unigramlove, nice, sweethurt, nasty, ugly406499Progressive Continuous increase of emotional story shapeRegressive Continuous decrease of emotional story shapeStable Rate of change near zero for emotional story shapeComedy Negative curvilinear degree of emotional story shape(i.e., u-shape) Tragedy Positive curvilinear degree of emotional story shape(i.e., inverted u-shape)ResultsThe review of Mystery Adventures as an example(WhyWasteTimeWorking, TripAdvisor, 29 May 2011)This is definitely an unusual thing to do in Las Vegas, but can be a wonderful change of pace.If you are into CSI and like solving mysteries, this is for you. If you'd rather just kick back, this might be a bit much. Max seemed nervous at first with lots of 'uhhh's and ummmms, but warmed up quickly. The mystery started out slow..which might be natural, but picked up pace and excitement as the night went on. And it did go on...from 7pm to well past 10pm. Very exciting and worth the effort we put into it. Landscape of (affective) consciousnessResultsThe review of Mystery Adventures as an example(WhyWasteTimeWorking, TripAdvisor, 29 May 2011)This is definitely an unusual thing to do in Las Vegas, but can be a wonderful change of pace.If you are into CSI and like solving mysteries, this is for you. If you'd rather just kick back, this might be a bit much. Max seemed nervous at first with lots of 'uhhh's and ummmms, but warmed up quickly. The mystery started out slow..which might be natural, but picked up pace and excitement as the night went on. And it did go on...from 7pm to well past 10pm. Very exciting and worth the effort we put into it. Temporal embeddingResultsThe review of Mystery Adventures as an example(WhyWasteTimeWorking, TripAdvisor, 29 May 2011)This is definitely an unusual thing to do in Las Vegas, but can be a wonderful change of pace.If you are into CSI and like solving mysteries, this is for you. If you'd rather just kick back, this might be a bit much. Max seemed nervous at first with lots of 'uhhh's and ummmms, but warmed up quickly. The mystery started out slow..which might be natural, but picked up pace and excitement as the night went on. And it did go on...from 7pm to well past 10pm. Very exciting and worth the effort we put into it. Spatial embedding0246810121 2 3 4 5 6 7Emotion D-gram SentenceResultsThe review of Mystery Adventures as an example(WhyWasteTimeWorking, TripAdvisor, 29 May 2011)This is definitely an unusual thing to do in Las Vegas, but can be a wonderful change of pace.If you are into CSI and like solving mysteries, this is for you. If you'd rather just kick back, this might be a bit much. Max seemed nervous at first with lots of 'uhhh's and ummmms, but warmed up quickly. The mystery started out slow..which might be natural, but picked up pace and excitement as the night went on. And it did go on...from 7pm to well past 10pm. Very exciting and worth the effort we put into it. GenreWe detect three trajectories for future research:1. (Re-)defining narrativity: The preciseness of the story definition can be challenged. The increasingly popular flash fiction and the Twitter effect (Hennig-Thurau, Wiertz, and Feldhaus 2015) support the notion of very short stories.2. Effects on conversion: Empirical work on the conversion effects of narratives is scant (van Laer et al. 2014). However, recent developments in digital libraries indicate that there is ample opportunity to investigate conversion as an additional consequence of narrativity (e.g., Google Books, the Internet Archive, and Project Gutenberg).3. Effects on brand public: A line of research into possible brand public creation or strengthening as a consequence of consuming narratives, which violate economic principles, can be initiated (Arvidsson and Caliandro 2015, McQuarrie, McIntyre, and Shanmugam 2015). Lessons still to learnFuture research

Computers evaluating screenplays? Automatic elicitation of narrativity from big data

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