Does the way we type words affect the way we perceive them?

For those who’ve toyed with the difficulty of games like Spelltower or QWOP, we know our relationship to our keyboards can be challenging. Over at Wired, Dave Mosher points to a new study that suggests that where words are may have effects on how we think of them.  To be more precise, a new study from researchers at the University College of London sugges that on the QWERTY keyboard, words on the right hand side of the board may eventually have more positive meanings than those on the left. (T, G, B is the Mississippi River in this case):

“We know how a word is spoken can affect its meaning. So can how it’s typed,” said cognitive scientistKyle Jasmin of the University of College London, co-author of a study about the so-called “QWERTY effect” in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. “As we filter language, hundreds or thousands of words, through our fingers, we seem to be connecting the meanings of the words with the physical way they’re typed on the keyboard.”

It’s too bad that WASD is on the left, eh?

-Jamin Warren

[via Wired]