Cited by 128Topic ModelingSleep and Wakefulness ResearchComputational and Text Analysis Methods

The interpretation of dream meaning: Resolving ambiguity using Latent Semantic Analysis in a small corpus of text

Open access
Altszyler, Edgar, Ribeiro, Sidarta, Sigman, Mariano, Fernández Slezak, Diego·2017·Consciousness and Cognition

Abstract

Computer-based dreams content analysis relies on word frequencies within predefined categories in order to identify different elements in text. As a complementary approach, we explored the capabilities and limitations of word-embedding techniques to identify word usage patterns among dream reports. These tools allow us to quantify words associations in text and to identify the meaning of target words. Word-embeddings have been extensively studied in large datasets, but only a few studies analyze semantic representations in small corpora. To fill this gap, we compared Skip-gram and Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) capabilities to extract semantic associations from dream reports. LSA showed better performance than Skip-gram in small size corpora in two tests. Furthermore, LSA captured relevant word associations in dream collection, even in cases with low-frequency words or small numbers of dreams. Word associations in dreams reports can thus be quantified by LSA, which opens new avenues for dream interpretation and decoding.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.concog.2017.09.004

Cites

63 of 63 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 66 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Altszyler, E., Ribeiro, S., Sigman, M., & Fernández Slezak, D.
Affiliations
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (AR)
  • Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (BR)
Corresponding author
Altszyler, Edgar
Venue
Consciousness and Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-11
Volume
56
Pages
178-187
ISSN
1053-8100 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2529840421
Cited by
128
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 3
FWCI
9.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Consciousness and Cognition (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • El Servicio de Difusión de la Creación Intelectual (National University of La Plata) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Americanae (AECID Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • CONICET Digital (CONICET) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
  • Universidad de Buenos Aires
  • Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Topic Modeling
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Social Sciences › General Social Sciences › Computational and Text Analysis Methods
Keywords
dream interpretation, dream content analysis, latent semantic analysis, word embeddings, skip-gram, word association, small corpora, dream narrative, low-frequency words, semantic ambiguity
MeSH terms
Association, Dreams, Humans, Psycholinguistics, Semantics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review