Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters
This study aims to decompose plot structures of stories in narrative multimedia (i.e., creative works that contain stories and are distributed through multimedia). Since a story is interwoven with main plots and subplots (i.e., primary and ancillary story lines), decomposing a story into multiple st...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-02-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/4/1645 |
| _version_ | 1797396874452271104 |
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| author | O-Joun Lee Eun-Soon You Jin-Taek Kim |
| author_facet | O-Joun Lee Eun-Soon You Jin-Taek Kim |
| author_sort | O-Joun Lee |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This study aims to decompose plot structures of stories in narrative multimedia (i.e., creative works that contain stories and are distributed through multimedia). Since a story is interwoven with main plots and subplots (i.e., primary and ancillary story lines), decomposing a story into multiple story lines enables us to analyze how events in the story are allocated and logically connected. For the decomposition, the existing studies employed character networks (i.e., social networks of characters that appeared in a story) and assumed that characters’ social relationships are consistent in a story line. However, these studies overlooked that social relationships significantly change around major events. To solve this problem, we attempt to use the changes for distinguishing story lines rather than suffer from the changes. We concentrate on the changes in characters’ social relationships being the result of changes in their personalities. Moreover, these changes gradually proceed within a story line. Therefore, we first propose features for measuring changes in personalities of characters: (i) Degrees of characters in character networks, (ii) lengths of dialogues spoken by characters, and (iii) ratios of out-degrees for in-degrees of characters in character networks. We supposed these features reflect importance, inner/outer conflicts, and activeness of characters, respectively. Since characters’ personalities gradually change in a story line, we can suppose that the features also show gradual story developments in a story line. Therefore, we conduct regression for each feature to discover dominant tendencies of the features. By filtering scenes that do not follow the tendencies, we extract a story line that exhibits the most dominant personality changes. We can decompose stories into multiple story lines by iterating the regression and filtering. Besides, personalities of characters change more significantly in major story lines. Based on this assumption, we also propose methods for discriminating main plots. Finally, we evaluated the accuracy of the proposed methods by applying them to the movies, which is one of the most popular narrative multimedia. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:58:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8981efc6b1c243e28b8ef8562f688c92 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:58:30Z |
| publishDate | 2021-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-8981efc6b1c243e28b8ef8562f688c922023-12-11T16:45:45ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172021-02-01114164510.3390/app11041645Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional CharactersO-Joun Lee0Eun-Soon You1Jin-Taek Kim2Future IT Innovation Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology, 77, Cheongam-ro, Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do 37673, KoreaDepartment of French Language and Culture, Inha University, 100, Inha-ro, Michuhol-gu, Incheon 22201, KoreaFuture IT Innovation Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology, 77, Cheongam-ro, Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do 37673, KoreaThis study aims to decompose plot structures of stories in narrative multimedia (i.e., creative works that contain stories and are distributed through multimedia). Since a story is interwoven with main plots and subplots (i.e., primary and ancillary story lines), decomposing a story into multiple story lines enables us to analyze how events in the story are allocated and logically connected. For the decomposition, the existing studies employed character networks (i.e., social networks of characters that appeared in a story) and assumed that characters’ social relationships are consistent in a story line. However, these studies overlooked that social relationships significantly change around major events. To solve this problem, we attempt to use the changes for distinguishing story lines rather than suffer from the changes. We concentrate on the changes in characters’ social relationships being the result of changes in their personalities. Moreover, these changes gradually proceed within a story line. Therefore, we first propose features for measuring changes in personalities of characters: (i) Degrees of characters in character networks, (ii) lengths of dialogues spoken by characters, and (iii) ratios of out-degrees for in-degrees of characters in character networks. We supposed these features reflect importance, inner/outer conflicts, and activeness of characters, respectively. Since characters’ personalities gradually change in a story line, we can suppose that the features also show gradual story developments in a story line. Therefore, we conduct regression for each feature to discover dominant tendencies of the features. By filtering scenes that do not follow the tendencies, we extract a story line that exhibits the most dominant personality changes. We can decompose stories into multiple story lines by iterating the regression and filtering. Besides, personalities of characters change more significantly in major story lines. Based on this assumption, we also propose methods for discriminating main plots. Finally, we evaluated the accuracy of the proposed methods by applying them to the movies, which is one of the most popular narrative multimedia.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/4/1645plot structurecharacter networkstory analysiscomputational narrativepersonality of fictional characters |
| spellingShingle | O-Joun Lee Eun-Soon You Jin-Taek Kim Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters Applied Sciences plot structure character network story analysis computational narrative personality of fictional characters |
| title | Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters |
| title_full | Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters |
| title_fullStr | Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters |
| title_full_unstemmed | Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters |
| title_short | Plot Structure Decomposition in Narrative Multimedia by Analyzing Personalities of Fictional Characters |
| title_sort | plot structure decomposition in narrative multimedia by analyzing personalities of fictional characters |
| topic | plot structure character network story analysis computational narrative personality of fictional characters |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/4/1645 |
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