Chameleonsinimaginedconversaons - Cornell Universitycristian/Chameleons_in... · Chameleonsinimaginedconversaons: * Anewapproachtounderstanding** coordinaonoflinguis1cstylein*dialogs

Chameleons in imagined conversa1ons: A new approach to understanding

coordina1on of linguis1c style in dialogs

Cris1an Danescu-‐Niculescu-‐Mizil

Lillian Lee

Department of Computer Science

Cornell University

06-‐23-‐2011 CMCL@ACL

Cris1an Danescu-‐Niculescu-‐Mizil and Lillian Lee Chameleons in imagined conversa1ons

When conversing, people non-‐consciously adapt to one another’s communica1ve behaviors. [Giles et al., 1991; Chartrand and Bargh, 1999]

Non-‐conscious coordina-on



Dimension Canonical study

Posture Condon and Ogston, 1967






Head nodding Hale and Burgoon, 1984







Pause length Jaffe and Feldstein, 1970

Backchannels White, 1984

Self-‐disclosure Derlenga et al., 1973

Linguis1c style Niederhoffer and Pennebaker, 2002











Communica1ve behaviors are “pa7erned and coordinated, like a dance” [Niederhoffer and Pennebaker, 2002]

























Linguis-c style coordina-on

Linguis-c style:

How things are said as opposed to what is said



Linguis-c style:


Example:

Client: “At what 1me does your shop close?”

Shopkeeper: “At five o’clock.” Shopkeeper: “Five o’clock”



Linguis-c style:


Example:


Client: “What 1me does your shop close?”

Shopkeeper: “At five o’clock.” Shopkeeper: “Five o’clock”

[Levelt & Kelter, 1982]



Linguis-c coordina-on occurs: instantaneously

non-‐consciously



Linguis-c style:

for us: func1on word class usage

Coordina-on is not just exact matching:


Shopkeeper: “In two hours.”



When does it happen?




face-‐to-‐face sedngs [Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002] -‐ Watergate transcripts





non-‐face-‐to-‐face sedngs [Reifer et al. 2006; Gonzales et al. 2010; N & P, 2002] -‐ phone conversa1ons, online chat






non-‐real-‐1me sedngs [Danescu-‐Niculescu-‐Mizil et al. 2011]

-‐ Twifer conversa1ons (involves a wide spectrum of rela1onship stages)






non-‐real-‐1me sedngs [Danescu-‐Niculescu-‐Mizil et al. 2011]

-‐ Twifer conversa1ons (involves a wide spectrum of rela1onship stages)

Across a wide range of conversa-onal seIngs.



Why does it happen?



Why does it happen?

Ac-vely debated for the last 40 years. [Ireland et al. 2011, Branigan et al., 2010]

disclaimer: we are not solving this debate today



Social mo1va1on

  to gain the other’s social approval [Giles 2008; Street & Giles, 1982]   audience design [Clark, 1996; Borjeld & Brennan, 1997]

Hypotheses:

Why does it happen?



Social mo1va1on


Unmediated reflex [Pickering and Garrod, 2004; Chartand and Bargh, 1999]   deeply embedded in the language-‐genera1on process

Hypotheses:

Why does it happen?



Social mo1va1on


Unmediated reflex [Pickering and Garrod, 2004; Chartand and Bargh, 1999]   deeply embedded in the language-‐genera1on process

Hypotheses:

Why does it happen?

Does coordina1on occur when the interlocutors have no social mo1va1ons?



Why does it happen?


Proxy ques1on: Does coordina1on occur when the dialog is not generated by the interlocutors (i.e., by the ones gathering social benefits)?



Why does it happen?



Case study: scripted movie dialogs

220,000 imagined conversa1ons between 9000 characters

from 617 movie scripts


Measuring coordina-on





VINCENT: Antwan probably didn't expect Marsellus to react like he did, but he had to expect a reac1on.



JULES: He just massaged her feet, massaging someone's feet is nothing, I massage my mother's feet.




JULES: It was a foot massage, a foot massage is nothing, I give my mother a foot massage.

JULES: He just massaged her feet, massaging someone's feet is nothing, I massage my mother's feet.






Matching on ar-cle presence.





Matching on ar-cle presence. But matching ≠ coordina-on !

(e.g., chance, Taran-no likes ar-cles, bad guys like ar-cles)



What we want: how much Jules’ inclusion of an ar1cle (say) immediately triggers the usage of ar1cles in Vincent’s reply?

What we don’t want: how similar Jules’ style is to Vincent’s style in general or how consistent Taran1no’s style is.




Coordina2on(V to J)(art.) =




Trigger

Coordina2on(V to J)(art.) = P(Vart.|V replied to J, Jart)




Trigger

Control (for inherent similarity)

Coordina2on(V to J)(art.) = P(Vart.|V replied to J, Jart)

-‐ P(Vart.|V replied to J)



Overall coordina-on: average over all pairs of characters (B,A)

“Triggered” probability Control probability

P(Bart.|B replied to A, Aart) P(Bart.|B replied to A)



Overall coordina-on: average over all pairs of characters (B,A)

Coordina1on


P(Bart.|B replied to A, Aart) P(Bart.|B replied to A)


Movie characters coordinate!




Sta-s-cally significant (p<0.001) effect of coordina-on on all 9 func-on word categories considered





Yes! Scriptwriters produce coordina1on despite not being the

beneficiaries of the presumed social benefits


But what if …

… we are only observing the effect of scriptwriters self-‐coordina-ng?


But what if …

… we are only observing the effect of scriptwriters self-‐coordina-ng?

(we know people self-‐coordinate [Reifer et al. 2006])


Author self-‐coordina-on hypothesis

Coordina1on of Vincent to Jules:

Jules Vincent Jules Vincent Jules Vincent



Coordina1on of Vincent to Jules: Self-‐coordina1on of the scriptwriter:


Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no





… would be the same or more than:






… would be the same or more than:


Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no Taran1no


… would be the same or more than the character self-‐coordina1on of J to J:

Taran1no Taran1no



It is not author self-‐coordina-on !

Coordina-on



Coordina1o

n

… it’s actually less than the character self-‐coordina-on


Movie characters vs. real people



Coordina1o

n

Compare amount of coordina-on for each dimension:



Coordina1o

n

Compare amount of coordina-on for each dimension:



coordina1on

coordina-on self-‐coordina-on

Coordina1o

n

Coordina1o

n

Twi7er Movies



coordina1on

Twi7er Movies

coordina-on self-‐coordina-on

Coordina1o

n

Coordina1o

n

Poten1al applica1on in detec1ng faked conversa1ons.


Effects of social features

In real life, some people coordinate more than others:

e.g.,

effects of gender [Ireland & Pennebacker, 2010, Bilous and Krauss, 1988] effects of social status [Thakerar et al., 1982; Gregory and Webster, 1996]


Effects of imagined social features?


e.g.,


Do such effects carry on when the social features are imagined?


Effects of imagined social features?


e.g.,


Do such effects carry on when the social features are imagined?

Have preconcep1ons about how certain people coordinate become embedded in this reflex?


Effects of imagined gender

Proxy for the gender of movie characters:

gender of the respec1ve actors



Coordina1o

n

to female

to m

ale

of female

of m

ale

overall


Coordina1o

n

to female

to m

ale

of female

of m

ale


overall


Coordina1o

n

to female

to m

ale

by female

by m

ale


overall


male to m

ale

female to m

ale

male to female

Coordina1n


fem. to fem.

overall

Coordina1o

n


fem. to fem.

male to m

ale

female to m

ale

male to female


overall

Coordina1o

n


Discovered coordina1on effects in imagined conversa1ons

Insight into the mechanism behind coordina1on

Preliminary evidence regarding preconcep1ons rela1ng coordina1on to various social features

Large-‐scale, metadata rich corpus of imagined conversa1ons

Contribu-ons

publicly available!


Thank you!

Contribu-ons

JULES: That’s probably a good idea.

VINCENT: I think we oughta leave.

Documents

Chameleons*in*imagined*conversaons - Cornell Universitycristian/Chameleons_in... · Chameleons*in*imagined*conversaons: * A*new*approach*to*understanding** coordinaon*of*linguis1c*style*in*dialogs

Chameleonsinimaginedconversaons - Cornell Universitycristian/Chameleons_in... · Chameleonsinimaginedconversaons: * Anewapproachtounderstanding** coordinaonoflinguis1cstylein*dialogs