“Computer scientists are writing algorithms to identify the emotional arcs of novels. Sociologists are building statistical models to analyze why certain works of visual art resonate more than others. Electrical engineers have scraped tens of thousands of book reviews from the online website Goodreads.com to parse why some types of stories drive readers to talk to each other, and what they talk about. Evolutionary biologists and cognitive scientists have adapted models from information retrieval to study tens of thousands of popular Western songs in order to understand cultural change and the evolution of cultural taste.” – Cultural Analytics
