This story describes how psychologists used content analysis to provide evidence that Shakespeare indeed authored the play Double Falsehood. The play in question has been the subject of literary dispute for hundreds of years. It was originally published by Lewis Theobold in 1727. Theobold claimed it was based on unpublished works by Shakespeare. And literary scholars have been debating this claim ever since. Enter two psychology professors, Boyd and Pennebaker. They decided to tackle this debate via statistics. They conducted a content analysis Double Falsehood as well as confirmed work by Shakespeare. What they tested for: "Under the supervision of University of Texas psychology professors Ryan L. Boyd and James W. Pennebaker, machines churned through 54 plays -- 33 by Shakespeare, nine by Fletcher and 12 by Theobold -- and tirelessly computed each play's average sentence-length, quantified the complexity and psychological valence of its language, and sussed out the ...