ArticleEntropy (Basel, Switzerland)2021
Principle of Least Effort and Sentence Length in Public Speaking.
Article in Entropy (Basel, Switzerland), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Word Length in Political Public Speaking: Distribution and Time Evolution.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Less is more in language production: an information-theoretic analysis of agrammatism in primary progressive aphasia.Brain communications · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The analysis of sentence lengths in the inaugural speeches of US presidents and the annual speeches of UK party leaders is carried out. Transcripts of the speeches are used, rather than the oral production. It is discovered that the average sentence length in these speeches decreases linearly with time, with the slope of 0.13 ± 0.03 words/year. It is shown that among the analyzed distributions (log-normal, folded and half normal, Weibull, generalized Pareto, Rayleigh) the Weibull is the best distribution for describing sentence length. These two results can be considered a consequence of the principle of least effort. The connection of this principle with the well-known principles of maximum and minimum entropy production is discussed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.