What happens inside an AI reader across Dickens' five staves?
Source: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Project Gutenberg #46, public domain. EMO-Core read pipeline, 63 segments of about 500 words, scored on the canonical D11 (I, B, J, An, Ag, Sa, Su, D, C, Ne, Ie; 0-10) by Claude Opus 4.8. Values are the mean of two independent runs (run IDs 223 and 224). Segment indices are zero-based; quotes are verbatim from source.txt.
This is a measurement of an AI reader, not of the book and not of human readers. Every quoted line below is checked word for word against the Project Gutenberg text before the page is built.
The stave opens cold: Contempt (C) peaks near 7.5 around segment 4 while Joy (J) and Intimacy (I) stay low (stave means I 3.2, J 2.7). When Marley arrives, Contempt collapses and Anxiety (An) and Surprise (Su) take over. By the end, Sadness (Sa) climbs toward 7.6 as remorse enters.
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.C is at its stave maximum here (one run).
legion of goblins, all of my own creationAn rises to about 7.2 while J falls below 1.
Incessant torture of remorse.
Warmth returns through memory, and so does grief. I rises to 6-7.7 from segment 16 (one dip to 5.2 at segment 22) and Sa runs from 1.2 to 8.6; Anger and Disgust stay low (at most 2.0 and 1.4), and Contempt stays at or below 2.5 except for 4.5 in segment 24 (Belle). Joy peaks at about 8.8 in the Fezziwig party, then drops sharply into the Belle scene.
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.Sa about 8.6, the stave's first high.
In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantialJ about 8.8, the stave's maximum.
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfortJ drops to 0.8 while Sa reaches 8.5.
The stave runs on plenty and shared warmth (J mean 6.6, the highest before the finale), with one dark inversion in the Cratchit scenes and a sharp turn at its end.
were jovial and full of gleeJ about 8.2 with An near 0.7.
tell me if Tiny Tim will live.Sa peaks at about 8.6 and An at 5.5, with a Contempt spike as Scrooge hears his own words returned.
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.J falls from about 7.7 to 1.5; An, Sa, D and Ag all jump together, the sharpest single-step shift in the book.
The darkest stave: J averages 1.0, and An, Disgust (D) and C are at their book-wide highs. Disgust and Contempt peak in the scavenger scene (D about 8.4); the stave then resolves into grief (segments 54-55: Sa 9.5 and 9.2) before the graveside terror (segment 56: An 7.7, the book-wide An maximum, with Sa 6.7 and Su 4.8).
He can't look uglier than he didD about 8.4, C about 7.7.
Quiet. Very quiet.Sa about 9.5 and I about 8.6, the book-wide Sa maximum.
I am not the man I was.An drops from about 7.7 to 3.0 and J rises to about 8.7 (one run).
From segment 58 on, J holds at 9.2-9.4 (segment 57: J 8.7), and An, Ag, D and C fall to near zero (all at or below 1.2). I climbs from 4.5 at segment 58 to 7-8 by segments 60-62. Sa stays above zero, about 2-4 in segments 58-62 (segment 57: 5.0), as a trace of what came before.
A happy New Year to all the world.J about 9.4 for the first time.
a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.The same segment: the laughter is narrated as the change itself.
God bless Us, Every One!J about 9.2, I about 7.4, An about 0.5.
This is a language model's reading of the text, scored in two independent runs, not a measurement of any reader. D11 values are the model's estimates of what the passage conveys; they are not validated against human readers. The two runs differ by about 0.3-0.6 points per dimension on average (mean absolute difference), but single values can differ much more: across the 54 segments with two valid readings (594 values) the largest gap on one value is 3.8 (segment 34, Su), and 8 values differ by 2 or more. Changes below roughly 1 point should not be read as findings. Three turning points rest on one run only, because the other run returned no usable score for that segment: segments 4, 11 and 57 (marked "(one run)"). In the first run, 9 of 63 segments (0, 4, 5, 11, 12, 27, 32, 38, 57) returned no usable score; their values come from the second run alone. Segments are cut at paragraph boundaries (target about 500 words; 52 of 63 segments have 500-577 words, the range is 213-735, the last segment being the shortest) with a one-paragraph overlap, so neighbouring segments share text and segments do not align exactly with stave boundaries (segment 57 straddles IV and V). The claims above are limited to what the 63 scored segments show.
Text: Project Gutenberg eBook #46, public domain · Pipeline: EMO-Core read, segments of about 500 words with rolling context · Model: claude-opus-4.8 · Runs: #223 (9 segments without a valid reading, filled from #224) and #224 · Values: mean of both runs where both are valid.