Words typed with the right hand lead to more positive emotions.
According to research published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review by cognitive scientists Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York, there is a link between the meaning of words and the way they are typed - a relationship they call the QWERTY effect.
In a series of three experiments, the researchers investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings
They found that the meanings of words in English, Dutch and Spanish were related to the way people typed them on the QWERTY keyboard.
Overall, words with more right-side letters were rated more positive in meaning than words with more left-side letters.
This effect was visible in all three languages and was not affected by word length, letter frequency or handedness.
The QWERTY effect was also found when people judged the meanings of fictitious words like pleek, and was strongest in new words and abbreviations like greenwash and LOL coined after the invention of QWERTY.
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