Introduction
You will not find a detailed description
of the inner workings of Connotative Intelligence™ technology at this Web site (or any
other Web site!). What follows is a brief general description of the lines of thinking
that led to the development of the technology.
Symbolic Representation
The use of ideas, images, or other symbols
to stand for objects or events is called symbolic representation. In the context of human
language, symbolic representation is achieved using words. Facility with symbolic
representation in the form of languages distinguishes humankind from other animals.
(Contrary to popular notions, chimpanzees
and gorillas do not have the capacity to learn language. Even with 15 or
20 years of training, they are unable to learn any more "language" than a smart
border collie or German shepherd.)
Language is a rule-governed system of
arbitrary symbols that can be combined in countless ways to communicate information.
The principle underlying grammar is
unusual in the natural world. A grammar is an example of a "discrete combinatorial
system." A limited number of discrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled,
combined, and permuted to create larger structures (in this case, sentences) with
properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements. . . . In a discrete
combinatorial system like language, there can be an unlimited number of completely
distinct combinations with an infinite range of properties. (Pinker, S. The Language Instinct. New York,
NY: HarperCollins, 1994)
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All languages include:
The use of language enables humankind to
develop advanced cognitive abilities. Cognitive development relates to the changes in a
person’s memory, thinking, use of language, and other mental skills as they develop
from infancy to adulthood.
In addition to developing cognitive
competence, humans also experience and display feelings, emotions and moods. In
particular, our emotional state, or the emotional state we desire to elicit
in others, influences our
choice of words.
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Words Convey Intellectual and Emotional
Meaning Simultaneously
Every human language enables people to
communicate both intellectually and emotionally because words and phrases convey both
cognitive and affective meaning simultaneously. "Affective" means influenced by
or resulting from emotions.
The connotative associations
of a given word or phrase in a given context are every bit as real as the denotative
meaning. For example, words such as "celebration," "springtime," and
"kiss" arouse unique assemblages of positive emotions. Words such as
"homeless," "cancer," and "rape" summon clouds of negative
emotions. Many words and phrases, such as "bullfight" and "family
reunion," call up mixed positive and negative emotions. Connotative meaning also
includes the evocation of other sensations and impressions, such as power (e.g.,
"war") and activity (e.g., "carnival").
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How Is It Possible to "Capture"
Emotion in Language?
Dictionaries, thesauruses, and other
denotative language reference products are created from vast electronically-stored
databases of words and phrases that are linked to contextual usage, parts of speech,
etymological data, and other variables. Some of these databases are proprietary, others
are more generally available. For example, the largest such database in English is the
British National Corpus®:
The British National Corpus®, a
collaboration between Longman, Oxford University Press, Chambers, Harrap, the Oxford
University Computing Service, the University of Lancaster, and the British Library, with
the support of the Department of Trade and Industry, was compiled between 1991 and 1994.
It consists of 100 million words of British English—90 million of written text and 10
million of spoken text—sampled from 1960 on. Particular attention has been paid to
the internal balance of the corpus, including manuscript materials and ephemera.
Crystal, David. The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
None of these databases contains
quantified connotative data. Historically, it has never been possible to pin down
emotional or connotative meaning in any language, the way it has long been possible to pin
down rational or denotative meaning.
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Today, however, so-called "soft"
variables, including emotions, attitudes, and preferences, can be measured accurately.
For example, pollsters conducting voter
preference surveys during election campaigns have no way of knowing objectively
whether a person being polled is telling the truth. And some polling subjects obviously do
not tell the truth. Moreover, those polled about voting preferences prior to elections are
under no obligation to actually vote on election day. And some of them obviously
don’t vote.
Yet, despite what would appear to be
numerous factors mitigating against the accuracy of opinion polls, scientifically
conducted polling is in fact very accurate. For example, the Gallup organization has
correctly predicted the outcome of every American presidential election since 1936
(including the Truman election of 1948), and has also correctly predicted every
Congressional election. Average deviation of Gallup
surveys from election outcomes has been -0.11%.
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In general, measurement of emotions and
attitudes follows this sort of reasoning:
1. Anything
that exists, exists in some quantity.
2. If it
exists in some quantity, it can be measured.
3. Emotions
and attitudes exist; therefore they exist in some quantity and therefore they can be
measured, or "captured."
Here's a slightly more detailed
explanation:
1. Science is
the systematic study of existence (matter and energy in a space-time continuum), generally
referred to as "nature."
2. Scientific
study means systematically identifying nature’s components (variables), measuring
them numerically, and comparing them objectively (replicable experimentation) with a view
to predicting natural phenomena, usually by employing mathematical tools.
3. Human
beings and other animals exist as part of nature.
4. Human
beings and other animals also perceive nature, mentally process what they perceive
(intellectually and emotionally), and behave accordingly.
5. Human
beings have the capability to systematically study animal perception (including human
perception), mental processing (intellectual and emotional), and resulting behavior.
6. The
natural phenomena we call emotions, which our perceptions tell us actually do exist, can
be identified in terms of variables, and can therefore be measured numerically, stored
systematically (in a database), compared objectively, and analyzed mathematically.
Strictly speaking, "connotative
meaning" encompasses the perceptions and emotions you associate with a word or
phrase. For example, if you live in the United States, the word "train" may
evoke a specific image of an Amtrak train speeding through an urban landscape. If you live
in Canada, the word "train" may evoke a specific image of a passenger train
winding through the Canadian Rockies. Such images differ for each individual.
However, while specific images vary from
person to person, nearly all the members of a society associate similar underlying
emotional connotations with the word "train", as well as connotations of
power, activity, abstraction, and other variables. Connotative Intelligence technology makes
visible and accessible these root, elemental connotative associations that most people in
any given society share. The technology emphasizes emotional connotations.
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