Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Public Reaction to Scientific Research via Twitter Sentiment Prediction Cover

Public Reaction to Scientific Research via Twitter Sentiment Prediction

Open Access
|Dec 2021

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Number of tweets related to research articles for the years 2011–2017.
Number of tweets related to research articles for the years 2011–2017.

Figure 2

Number of tweets for each Scopus subject.
Number of tweets for each Scopus subject.

Figure 3

Number of articles for each Scopus subject.
Number of articles for each Scopus subject.

Figure 4

Correlation matrix of features with two class labels – case 4.
Correlation matrix of features with two class labels – case 4.

Figure 5

Performance of classification models with two class labels – case 4.
Performance of classification models with two class labels – case 4.

Figure 6

Important features for two-class label classification.
Important features for two-class label classification.

Figure 7

Correlation matrix of features with three class labels – case 4.
Correlation matrix of features with three class labels – case 4.

Figure 8

Performance of classification models with three class labels – case 4.
Performance of classification models with three class labels – case 4.

Figure 9

Important features for three-class label classification.
Important features for three-class label classification.

Best results for cases 1–3 with two-class labels_

Dataset A: Tweets with article's titles

Case NumberModelAccuracyF-1 Score
1Random Forest0.810.81
2Random Forest0.830.83
3Random Forest0.850.85

Sentiment distribution of articles using SentiStrength and Sentiment140 libraries_

Sentiment libraryMetric for multiple sentimentsNumber of positive sentimentsNumber of negative sentimentsNumber of neutral sentiments
SentiStrengthmean11,443 (≈ 7.7%)31,212 (≈ 21%)106,057 (≈ 71.3%)
SentiStrengthmedian14,905 (≈ 10%)39,091 (≈ 26.3%)94,716 (≈ 63.7%)
Sentiment140mean3,528 (≈ 2.4%)6,254 (≈ 4.2%)138,930 (≈ 93.4%)
Sentiment140median3,544 (≈ 2.4%)3,168 (≈ 2.1%)142,000 (≈ 95.5%)

Best results for cases 1–3 with three labels_

Dataset A: Tweets with article's titles

Case NumberModelAccuracyF-1 Score
1Random Forest0.460.46
2Random Forest0.490.45
3Random Forest0.680.66

Sentiments on dataset B using different libraries and metrics_

ExperimentSentiment libraryMetric for multiple sentimentsNumber of positive sentimentsNumber of negative sentimentsNumber of neutral sentiments
case 1VADERmean44,866 (≈ 42.4%)26,664 (≈ 25.1%)34,304 (≈ 32.4%)
case 2VADERmedian38,038 (≈ 35.9%)23,124 (≈ 21.8%)44,672 (≈ 42.2%)
case 3TextBlobmean54,169 (≈ 51.1%)11,841 (≈ 11.1%)39,824 (≈ 37.6%)
case 4TextBlobmedian45,254 (≈ 42.7%)9,551 (≈ 9%)51,029 (≈ 48.2%)

Results of the regression models_

Dataset A: Tweets with article's titles

ModelMean Squared ErrorR-Squared
Multiple Linear Regression0.0910.008
Decision Tree0.189−1.051
Random Forest0.104−0.130
Support Vector Regression0.093−0.014

Segregation of sentiments score_

Score rangeSentiment
[−1,0)Negative
0Neutral
(0,1]Positive

Examples of sentiment label assignment_

Article1st Tweet and Sentiment2nd Tweet and Sentiment3rd Tweet and SentimentMean of tweets’ sentimentFinal sentiment class label
Article 1Researchers in Norway investigate mortality risk of individuals after the death of a spouse (−0.7184)Can you die of a broken heart? If your spouse dies, your death risk substantially increases (−0.9186)A sad study: spouses much more likely to die after being widowed (−0.885)−0.8407Negative
Article 2Presentation of the ABC Best Paper Award 2013 to Sherrie Elzey. Read the winning paper (0.9022)ABC Best Paper Award 2013 goes to lead authors Sherrie Elzey and De-Hao Tsai. Read their article for free (0.9001)NA0.90115Positive
Article 3Latest article from our research team has been published about using School Function Assessment! (0)Article on using School Function Assessment now online (0)NA0Neutral

Selected features from the Altmetrics dataset_

FeatureDescription
Scopus subjectSubject of a research article.
Article titleTitle of a research article.
Article abstractAbstract of a research article.
Abstract lengthNumber of words in the abstract of a research paper.
Follower countNumber of followers a Twitter user has.
Author countNumber of authors credited on the research article.
TweetTweet about a research article.

Derived features from the dataset_

Original featureDerived featureDescription
Article titleTitle sentimentSentiment score of the title of a research article.
Article abstractAbstract sentimentSentiment score of a research article abstract.
Follower countTweet reachThe mean number of followers of each user who tweeted about the research article (i.e. one article can be tweeted by many users, who may differ from each other in the number of followers they have).
TweetTweet sentimentSentiment score of a tweet related to a research article.

Sentiments on dataset A using different libraries and metrics_

ExperimentSentiment libraryMetric for multiple sentimentsNumber of positive sentimentsNumber of negative sentimentsNumber of neutral sentiments
case 1VADERmean55,833 (≈ 37.5%)37,957 (≈ 25.5%)54,922 (≈ 36.9%)
case 2VADERmedian45,606 (≈ 30.6%)32,754 (≈ 22%)70,352 (≈ 47.3%)
case 3TextBlobmean67,035 (≈ 45%)16,881 (≈ 11.3%)64,796 (≈ 43.6%)
case 4TextBlobmedian53,466 (≈ 36%)13,748 (≈ 9.2%)81,498 (≈ 54.8%)

Top 25 positive and negative words in title, abstract, and tweets of research articles_

TitleAbstractTweets



PositiveNegativePositiveNegativePositiveNegative
bestboringawesomeawfulawesomeawful
deliciousdevastatingbestbleakbestbleak
excellentdisgustingdeliciousboringbreathtakingboring
greatestevilexcellentcrueldeliciouscruel
perfectgrimexquisitedevastatingdelightfuldevastating
superbviciousflawlessdisgustedexcellentdisgusting
wonderfulworstgreatestdreadfulexquisitedreadful
brilliantfearfulimpressedevilgreatestevil
idealrepellentlegendarygrimimpressedgrim
incredibleretardmagnificentgruesomelegendarygruesome
beautifulbasemarveloushorriblemagnificenthorrible
splendidbloodymasterfulhorrificmarveloushorrific
attractivedoubtfulperfecthystericalmasterfulhysterical
experiencedfilthysuperbinsaneperfectinsane
expressivegriefwonderfulinsultingpricelessinsulting
favoredhateartesianmenacingsuperbmiserable
greatviolentbrilliantoutrageouswonderfulnasty
happystupididealruthlessbrilliantoutrageous
intelligenttragicincredibleshockingidealpathetic
joysickbeautifulterribleincredibleshocking
proudangerattractiveterrifyingbeautifulterrible
uncommoncrudebravevicioussplendidterrifying
unforgettablefrustratedelectworstattractivevicious
winpainfulexperiencedfearfulbraveworst
remarkableshockedexpressivehatedelectfearful
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2022-0003 | Journal eISSN: 2543-683X | Journal ISSN: 2096-157X
Language: English
Page range: 97 - 124
Submitted on: Aug 5, 2021
Accepted on: Oct 31, 2021
Published on: Dec 11, 2021
Published by: Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Science Library
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2021 Murtuza Shahzad, Hamed Alhoori, published by Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Science Library
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.