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Understanding Leximancer
Thursday, 27 May 2010 07:34 | Written by Graham Young

Here is a typical Leximancer map as I normally display them. Click on this image and it should open a new window which will after some time display a similar Leximancer map, with some additions. To see the map and use it you will need to have Java installed and working.

 

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I'll leave you to discover most of the features of Leximancer on your own. But just a couple of comments first. The map is a Venn diagram that has groups that it calls themes. These are words that have significant associations with a large number of concepts. They are not necessarily the most frequently mentioned words, but they do have a large number of relationships. The smaller words that appear on the diagram are called concepts. They are words that occur frequently in the text and appear to be significant.

The map has sliders at the bottom. One allows you to increase the number of concepts that you see. At first you only see the most significant concepts, but as you move it to the right more and more concepts become visible. Another allows you to decrease the number of themes that you see until only the most significant are visible. By default it is set at one-third which seems to give a pretty good balance. The third slider allows you to rotate the map so you can get a  better view.

You can click on any of the concepts and the map will show you what other concepts it is linked to and produce a list of words with which it co-occurs on the right. If you click on any of the magnifying glasses it will take you to the actual pieces of text where that concept is mentioned.

Have fun, and let me know what you think, preferably by commenting on the article. I'll also keep an eye on the comments thread for any explanations or help you might need.

 

 

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Comments   

 
0 #1 Very interesting. I also believe in 'map — Brad Spencer 2010-06-23 09:58
Very interesting. I also believe in 'maps' albeit somewhat different. Maybe our DemographicDrap es maps would be of interest in the full mix of electorate analysis.

See our free myElectorate web mashup at demos.numaps.com.au/.../

Brad....