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36 - Natural Language Processing in Behavioural Data Science

Using Computational Linguistics to Understand and Model Behaviour

from Part V - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2026

Ganna Pogrebna
Affiliation:
The Alan Turing Institute
Thomas T. Hills
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Recent advances in data-driven behavioural science and, particularly, in Behavioural Data Science, saw the rise of applying natural language processing techniques to understanding and modelling human behaviour, algorithmic behaviour, as well as behaviour of complex human–machine systems. From associative modelling in the standard psychological experiments to understanding emotional arcs in novels and movies through the way humans, algorithms and complex systems use language, this chapter demonstrates how computational linguistics methods allow behavioural methodology to go beyond the ‘sterile’ laboratory environments into the field using data, test hypotheses at scale and have scalable practical impact. This chapter also shows how language-based modelling can shed light on cognition, decision-making, judgements and cultural evolution. Using empirical example of a large-scale Behavioural Data Science study, this chapter also demonstrates how language analysis can be used as a ‘truth serum’, helping to obtain underlying human preferences from subjective judgements usually provided in surveys.

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