Just what we need: sarcasm software

NS 2762: Just what we need: sarcasm software
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627624.200-just-what-we-need-sarcasm-software.html
  * 26 May 2010


COMPUTERS are getting better at understanding human languages, thanks
partly to algorithms that can analyse sentences for positive or
negative sentiments, says Ari Rappoport of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel. But picking up on sarcasm is still a problem. "In
many cases, sarcasm is difficult even for people to recognise", never
mind computers, he says.

Rappoport and colleagues wrote a sentiment-analysing program. They then
trained this software to recognise sarcasm by feeding it sentences that
had been flagged up by human reviewers as likely to contain sarcasm.

The team used the trained program to analyse a selection of product
reviews on Amazon.com and a random selection of posts on Twitter. Three
human volunteers were asked to rate the same material for sarcastic
content.

The algorithm agreed with the volunteers 77 per cent of the time for
Amazon.com product reviews and 83 per cent of the time for the tweets.

The research was presented at the International AAAI Conference on
Weblogs and Social Media in Washington DC this week. The tool could be
used by marketers to track online public sentiment surrounding brands.