On Universality in Human Correspondence Activity

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2009-09, Vol.325 (5948), p.1696-1700
• Main Authors: Malmgren, R. Dean, Stouffer, Daniel B, Campanharo, Andriana S.L.O, Amaral, Luís A. Nunes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Circadian Rhythm; Cognition & reasoning; Communication; Correspondence; Correspondence as Topic; Electronic Mail; Electronic mail systems; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human Activities; Humans; Information processing; Language; Letters; Models, Statistical; Monte Carlo Method; Normal Distribution; Occupations; Poisson Distribution; Politics; Probability; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Science; Social interactions. Communication. Group processes; Social psychology; Time Factors; Writing
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1174562

The identification and modeling of patterns of human activity have important ramifications for applications ranging from predicting disease spread to optimizing resource allocation. Because of its relevance and availability, written correspondence provides a powerful proxy for studying human activity. One school of thought is that human correspondence is driven by responses to received correspondence, a view that requires a distinct response mechanism to explain e-mail and letter correspondence observations. We demonstrate that, like e-mail correspondence, the letter correspondence patterns of 16 writers, performers, politicians, and scientists are well described by the circadian cycle, task repetition, and changing communication needs. We confirm the universality of these mechanisms by rescaling letter and e-mail correspondence statistics to reveal their underlying similarity.