分析小说摘要如何简化叙事，揭示其线性与均匀性缺陷。
The Plot Thins: Uniformity and Linearity in Literary Summaries
- 构建150部小说摘要的句级映射数据集，评估摘要忠实度。
- 摘要普遍缺乏线性顺序与均匀分布，导致情节细节失真。
- 发现文学作品与摘要在叙事清晰度上存在显著差异，适合研究叙事结构者参考。
文学作品复杂，需平衡情节、悬念、意外与艺术表达。小说摘要侧重情节，可能导致与原文偏差。我们结合人工与大模型标注，构建了150部小说摘要的句子-章节映射数据集。发现该任务对人类和模型均出人意料地困难。基于此映射，我们测量摘要的线性度（事件顺序保持程度）与均匀性（注意力在源文本中分布的均衡性）。通过分析摘要偏离线性与均匀性的时机与方式，揭示了文学作品与摘要在情节表达上的差异，尤其体现在叙事细节的清晰度与突出性方面。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Works of literature are complicated; they balance plot, suspense, surprise, and artistic expression. Summaries of literature prioritize plot, and therefore may deviate from their sources. Using a combination of manual and LLM-based annotation, we construct a dataset mapping sentences from 150 novel summaries to their respective source chapters. We find the task unexpectedly difficult for both human and model annotators. Using the sentence-to-chapter mappings, we then measure summary linearity, the degree to which it maintains the source's order of events, and uniformity, the degree to which a summary spreads attention equally across a source. By examining when and how summaries break linearity and uniformity, we identify differences in how literary works and summaries express plot, particularly with regard to the clarity and prominence with which narrative details are described.
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