Blogging Woolf

Words are important. Writers know that. Now researchers are using words to create algorithms to help prevent suicide. And they are basing their research on Virginia Woolf’s use of words in her writing before she drowned by walking into the River Ouse on March 28, 1941.

Researchers from St. Joseph’s Healthcare, McMaster University and the University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil have analyzed that writing to create a word cloud from the 46 documents Woolf wrote during the last two months of her life, along with a cloud created from random samplings from 54 of her letter and diary entries prior to that period.

Reading the clouds

The contrast is stark, explains Dr. Diego Librenza-Garcia, a post-doctoral fellowship at the university in Brazil. 

The cloud compiled from her writing during the final months of her life includes such words as: little, miss, war, nothing, never, can’t and don’t, negative words that indicate Woolf’s hopelessness.

In contrast, the cloud compiled from happier times in Woolf’s life, frequently used words such as love, tomorrow, nice, hope and good.

The researchers created a “text classification algorithm” unique to Woolf’s vocabulary and concluded it would have been able to predict her suicide with 80.45 per cent accuracy. – The Spectator

An app that would build algorithms

The researchers hope to design an app that would build an algorithm for each individual patient that will analyze texts, emails and social media posts of at-risk patients who have consented to participate, so their caregivers can be alerted when intervention is needed to prevent suicide, according to an article in The Spectator. 

The research team’s study was published Oct. 24 in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal.