On the Context-Free Ambiguity of Emoji

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Version: Final published version
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Serval ID
serval:BIB_2B0A45412AD1
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
On the Context-Free Ambiguity of Emoji
Journal
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Author(s)
Częstochowska Justyna, Gligorić Kristina, Peyrard Maxime, Mentha Yann, Bień Michał, Grütter Andrea, Auer Anita, Xanthos Aris, West Robert
ISSN
2334-0770
2162-3449
Publication state
Published
Issued date
31/05/2022
Volume
16
Pages
1388-1392
Language
english
Abstract
Due to their pictographic nature, emojis come with baked-in, grounded semantics. Although this makes emojis promising candidates for new forms of more accessible communication, it is still unknown to what degree humans agree on the inherent meaning of emojis when encountering them outside of concrete textual contexts. To bridge this gap, we collected a crowdsourced dataset (made publicly available) of one-word descriptions for 1,289 emojis presented to participants with no surrounding text. The emojis and their interpretations were then examined for ambiguity. We find that, with 30 annotations per emoji, 16 emojis (1.2%) are completely unambiguous, whereas 55 emojis (4.3%) are so ambiguous that the variation in their descriptions is as high as that in randomly chosen descriptions. Most emojis lie between these two extremes. Furthermore, investigating the ambiguity of different types of emojis, we find that emojis representing symbols from established, yet not cross-culturally familiar code books (e.g., zodiac signs, Chinese characters) are most ambiguous. We conclude by discussing design implications.
Open Access
Yes
Create date
23/11/2022 10:35
Last modification date
24/11/2022 7:46
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