Text Mining Childhood Memories

Qualitative research takes a lot of time and resources, but inventions such as text mining programs might be an enrichment for qualitative research, as well as more objective. The primary focus of this study was to analyze described first childhood memories with the text mining program LIWC with the Dutch dictionary versions of 2007 and 2015. The goal was to analyze the validity of the Dutch dictionaries, as well as analyzing their differences. Childhood memories of 513 participants were gathered, which were assessed on their emotional valence by LIWC and five independent participants. The results showed that the assessment of LIWC significantly correlated with the indications of the memory owners, as well as the judgment of the independent participants. That led to the conclusion that LIWC might be indeed a valid tool to analyze emotional valence in memories, and therefore enables analyzes that are much faster and at a larger scale, while also providing a more objective assessment.