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Diversity in Psychological Research Activities: Quantitative Approach With Topic Modeling.

ABSTRACT: Recent cultural studies have discussed universality and diversity in human behavior using numerous samples investigated worldwide. We aimed to quantitatively extend this discussion to various research activities in psychology in terms of geographic regions and time trends. Most psychology departments have specialists in various fields of psychology. Further, research institutions in all regions typically aim to provide systematic and balanced research education. Nevertheless, most researchers recognize universal features and patterns of diversity in research activities in psychology in terms of regional differences and time trends. However, these arguments remain intuitive and vague, and no studies have conducted quantitative analyses. To this end, we conducted topic modeling for the abstracts of psychological articles with the regions of author affiliations and publication periods as covariates. The results showed that the topic proportions related to basic research were high in North-Central America, whereas those related to clinical research were high in Europe. Interestingly, the regional differences shown by topic modeling were not observed in the frequency analysis of keywords, indicating that topic modeling revealed implicit characteristics. Moreover, we observed an increasing trend of neuroscience topics across publication periods. However, this trend was not valid for the psychology journal Psychological Science. Taken together, our results suggest diversity of geographic regions and periods in research activities in psychology. More importantly, our findings indicate that universality holds neither for human behavior nor research activities on human mental processes.

SUBMITTER: Otsuka S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8716499 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Disease ecology is a rapidly growing subdiscipline, and mammals and their parasites feature prominently in both historical and more recent research efforts. Nevertheless, the diversity of topics explored, and those not well explored, has not been systematically assessed. We conducted a systematic review of the published scientific literature in disease ecology of mammals and subjected the collection of original and review articles identified to a topic modeling approach, which is based on the words used in the published texts and their contexts (i.e., the frequency and strength of their semantic relationships with one another). In addition to concept maps identifying the most prominent research themes, we identified eight (not mutually exclusive) subcategories of studies, including experimental, theoretical, comparative, behavioral, immunological-microbiological, biogeographic-macroecological, vector-focused (e.g., mosquitoes), and disturbance-focused. The most prominent themes arising in review papers included the ecology of zoonotic diseases transmitted from non-human mammals, comparisons of pathogen prevalence between mammalian species, and pathogen discovery-disease surveillance studies, particularly of marine mammals and bats. For the original articles, the most prominent themes included ecology of rodent-transmitted viral and bacterial diseases and the population biology of zoonotic hosts. Most studies used comparative or descriptive approaches to investigate mammal-pathogen-disease relationships at a local scale, focusing on vector-borne diseases. Experimental, modeling, immunological, and behavioral approaches were strikingly underrepresented. Topics of strong conceptual importance, but that are underrepresented in the current literature, include: 1) the effects of the population density of mammalian hosts, and manipulations of density, on pathogen transmission; 2) macroecological studies that quantify effects of mammalian host species on parasite abundance and prevalence; and 3) effects of climate change on physiological and behavioral processes relevant to mammal-parasite interactions.

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Diversity in Psychological Research Activities: Quantitative Approach With Topic Modeling.

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