Presentation Title
Character Space: quantifying how personality traits support story-telling
Abstract
Fictional character traits reflect underlying cultural and individual cognition about what it means to be human. But how does the archetype ecosystem support the story-telling process? Applying dimensional reduction to audience ratings of fictional characters from the website Open Psychometrics, we identify patterns in character space across authors, genres, and time periods. We use arcs through character space to investigate the features that define compelling stories. Our work supports a growing science of stories which can inform interpretation of real world events such as belief in conspiracy theories.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Christopher M. Danforth
Faculty/Staff Collaborators
Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds
Status
Graduate
Student College
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Program/Major
Complex Systems
Primary Research Category
Social Sciences
Secondary Research Category
Arts & Humanities
Tertiary Research Category
Engineering & Physical Sciences
Character Space: quantifying how personality traits support story-telling
Fictional character traits reflect underlying cultural and individual cognition about what it means to be human. But how does the archetype ecosystem support the story-telling process? Applying dimensional reduction to audience ratings of fictional characters from the website Open Psychometrics, we identify patterns in character space across authors, genres, and time periods. We use arcs through character space to investigate the features that define compelling stories. Our work supports a growing science of stories which can inform interpretation of real world events such as belief in conspiracy theories.