A Computational Framework to Identify Self-Aspects in Text

Abstract: This Ph.D. proposal introduces a plan to develop a computational framework to identify Self-aspects in text. The Self is a multifaceted construct and it is reflected in language. While it is described across disciplines like cognitive science and phenomenology, it remains underexplored in NLP. Many of the aspects of the Self align with psychological and other well-researched phenomena (e.g., those related to mental health), highlighting the need for systematic NLP-based analysis. In line with this, we plan to introduce an ontology of Self-aspects and a gold-standard annotated dataset. Using this foundation, we will develop and evaluate conventional discriminative models, generative LLMs, and embedding-based retrieval approaches against four main criteria: interpretability, ground-truth adherence, accuracy, and computational efficiency. Top-performing models will be applied in case studies in mental health and empirical phenomenology.