Identifying User Demographic Traits through Virtual-World Language Use

Citation

A. Lawson, and J. Murray, “Identifying User Demographic Traits Through Virtual-world Language Use,” In Predicting Real World Behaviors from Virtual World Data, Ahmad, M.A., Shen, C., Srivastava, J., Contractor, N. (Eds.), Springer, 2014.

Abstract

The paper presents approaches for identifying real-world demographic attributes based on language use in the virtual world. We apply features developed from the classic literature on sociolinguistics and sound symbolism to data collected from virtual-world chat and avatar naming to determine participants’ age and gender. We also examine participants’ use of avatar names across virtual worlds and how these names are employed to project a consistent identity across environments, which we call “traveling characteristics.”

Keywords—virtual worlds, linguistic features, machine learning


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