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The Phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, November 2013
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Citations

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133 Dimensions

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348 Mendeley
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7 CiteULike
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Title
The Phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood
Published in
PLOS ONE, November 2013
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0078871
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jamshid J. Tehrani

Abstract

Researchers have long been fascinated by the strong continuities evident in the oral traditions associated with different cultures. According to the 'historic-geographic' school, it is possible to classify similar tales into "international types" and trace them back to their original archetypes. However, critics argue that folktale traditions are fundamentally fluid, and that most international types are artificial constructs. Here, these issues are addressed using phylogenetic methods that were originally developed to reconstruct evolutionary relationships among biological species, and which have been recently applied to a range of cultural phenomena. The study focuses on one of the most debated international types in the literature: ATU 333, 'Little Red Riding Hood'. A number of variants of ATU 333 have been recorded in European oral traditions, and it has been suggested that the group may include tales from other regions, including Africa and East Asia. However, in many of these cases, it is difficult to differentiate ATU 333 from another widespread international folktale, ATU 123, 'The Wolf and the Kids'. To shed more light on these relationships, data on 58 folktales were analysed using cladistic, Bayesian and phylogenetic network-based methods. The results demonstrate that, contrary to the claims made by critics of the historic-geographic approach, it is possible to identify ATU 333 and ATU 123 as distinct international types. They further suggest that most of the African tales can be classified as variants of ATU 123, while the East Asian tales probably evolved by blending together elements of both ATU 333 and ATU 123. These findings demonstrate that phylogenetic methods provide a powerful set of tools for testing hypotheses about cross-cultural relationships among folktales, and point towards exciting new directions for research into the transmission and evolution of oral narratives.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 348 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 6 2%
United Kingdom 6 2%
Germany 4 1%
France 3 <1%
Japan 3 <1%
Poland 2 <1%
Sweden 2 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Turkey 1 <1%
Other 13 4%
Unknown 307 88%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 75 22%
Researcher 73 21%
Student > Master 49 14%
Student > Bachelor 26 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 21 6%
Other 64 18%
Unknown 40 11%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 121 35%
Social Sciences 39 11%
Arts and Humanities 32 9%
Psychology 21 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 18 5%
Other 76 22%
Unknown 41 12%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 765. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 March 2024.
All research outputs
#27,641
of 26,746,546 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#450
of 233,588 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#142
of 227,267 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#12
of 5,122 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,746,546 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 233,588 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 227,267 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5,122 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.