研究发现，文化变革的领先者往往是高引用或年轻作者，其文本中最具前瞻性的片段最能反映真实变化。
Locating the Leading Edge of Cultural Change
- 用三种文本表示法分析文学、经济与小说三类语料
- 高引用与年轻作者的文本在各领域均更超前
- 文本影响力来自最具创新性的片段，而非全程创新
文本相似性与差异性度量被广泛用于研究文化变迁。但何种度量能与社会证据中的变化实际对齐？我们采用三种文本表示方法（主题模型、文档嵌入、词级困惑度）分析三类语料（文学研究、经济学、小说）。在每种情况下，高引用作者和年轻作者的作品在文本上均处于领先位置。未发现任一表示方法明显优于其他。但当仅使用文本中前25%最具代表性的段落时，与社会证据的吻合度最高，表明文本影响力可能更多取决于其最前沿的时刻，而非持续保持创新水平。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Measures of textual similarity and divergence are increasingly used to study cultural change. But which measures align, in practice, with social evidence about change? We apply three different representations of text (topic models, document embeddings, and word-level perplexity) to three different corpora (literary studies, economics, and fiction). In every case, works by highly-cited authors and younger authors are textually ahead of the curve. We don't find clear evidence that one representation of text is to be preferred over the others. But alignment with social evidence is strongest when texts are represented through the top quartile of passages, suggesting that a text's impact may depend more on its most forward-looking moments than on sustaining a high level of innovation throughout.
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