Kyle Jasmin

The QWERTY Effect: How typing shapes the meanings of words

The QWERTY keyboard mediates communication for millions of language users. Here, we investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard and others with more letters on the left. In three experiments, we tested whether asymmetries in the way people interact with keys on the right and left of the keyboard influence their evaluations of the emotional valence of the words. We found the predicted relationship between emotional valence and QWERTY key position across three languages (English, Spanish, and Dutch). Words with more right-side letters were rated as more positive in valence, on average, than words with more left-side letters: the QWERTY effect. This effect was strongest in new words coined after QWERTY was invented and was also found in pseudowords. Although these data are correlational, the discovery of a similar pattern across languages, which was strongest in neologisms, suggests that the QWERTY keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers. Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which semantic changes in language can arise.

Cohesion and Joint Speech: Right Hemisphere Contributions to Synchronized Vocal Production

Synchronized behavior (chanting, singing, praying, dancing) is found in all human cultures and is central to religious, military, and political activities, which require people to act collaboratively and cohesively; however, we know little about the neural underpinnings of many kinds of synchronous behavior (e.g., vocal behavior) or its role in establishing and maintaining group cohesion. In the present study, we measured neural activity using fMRI while participants spoke simultaneously with another person. We manipulated whether the couple spoke the same sentence (allowing synchrony) or different sentences (preventing synchrony), and also whether the voice the participant heard was “live” (allowing rich reciprocal interaction) or prerecorded (with no such mutual influence). Synchronous speech was associated with increased activity in posterior and anterior auditory fields. When, and only when, participants spoke with a partner who was both synchronous and “live,” we observed a lack of the suppression of auditory cortex, which is commonly seen as a neural correlate of speech production. Instead, auditory cortex responded as though it were processing another talkers speech. Our results suggest that detecting synchrony leads to a change in the perceptual consequences of ones own actions: they are processed as though they were other-, rather than self-produced. This may contribute to our understanding of synchronized behavior as a group-bonding tool. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Synchronized human behavior, such as chanting, dancing, and singing, are cultural universals with functional significance: these activities increase group cohesion and cause participants to like each other and behave more prosocially toward each other. Here we use fMRI brain imaging to investigate the neural basis of one common form of cohesive synchronized behavior: joint speaking (e.g., the synchronous speech seen in chants, prayers, pledges). Results showed that joint speech recruits additional right hemisphere regions outside the classic speech production network. Additionally, we found that a neural marker of self-produced speech, suppression of sensory cortices, did not occur during joint synchronized speech, suggesting that joint synchronized behavior may alter self-other distinctions in sensory processing.