Communications of the ACM
Researchers se Text, Computers to Spot nique Language of Psychopathic Killers
Credit: GSM Dome
It turns out, with the help of powerful computer analysis, words may be the window to the soul.
Using computerized text analysis, Cornell University Computing and Information Science Professor Jeff Hancock found that psychopathic murderers make identifiable word choices — beyond their conscious control — when talking about their crimes. The words of these criminals match their personalities, which reflect selfishness, detachment from their crimes and emotional "flatness," Hancock says.
Among other tendencies identified by Hancock and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology, psychopaths used more conjunctions such as "because" or "since," and used twice as many words relating to their physical needs.
In the new reality of massive social media communication, according to Hancock, who also is a professor of communication at Cornell, the ability to identify these patterns could have broad implications — from helping clinicians identify people in need of treatment, to aiding law enforcement officials tracking suspects across Twitter and Facebook.
"Hungry Like the Wolf: A Word-Pattern Analysis of the Language of Psychopaths," by Jeffrey T. Hancock, Michael T. Woodworth, and Stephen Porter, published by Legal and Criminological Psychology, used statistical text analysis to examine the features of crime narratives provided by psychopathic homicide offenders.
Hancock will discuss social media, law enforcement, and the complete details and implications of the study on Monday (October 17) at Cornell's ILR Conference Center in New York, NY. Joining the conversation remotely from the University of British Columbia will be practicing clinician and Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Woodworth, co-author of the study and one of the world's leading experts on psychopathy and criminal behavior.
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