It is quite interesting to note how different words with similar meanings had different effects, albeit self-reported. The same effect was observed when ‘precious’ was substituted with ‘valuable’, or ‘amazing’ was substituted with ‘impressive’.īradley and Lang (1999) asked people to self-report on a scale of 1-9 how happy vs unhappy (Valence), excited vs calm (Arousal), and controlled vs in-control (Dominance), they felt when reading different words. Further, in sentences gotten from Yelp reviews and Twitter, substituting the word ‘yummy’ with ‘tasty’ led to an increased perception that the author of the review/tweet is a male. The same effect was observed by substituting ‘rapidly’ with ‘quickly’ or ‘various’ with ‘several’. In other words, how does the perception of one sentence get affected when one word in it is substituted? They found, for example, that substituting the word ‘shops’ with ‘boutiques’ in the sentence ‘there are plenty of shops nearby’ increases the desirability of an Airbnb listing. Wang and Culotta (2019) looked at data from Airbnb, Twitter, and Yelp, and investigated how single-word substitutions affect perception. But are words only a medium of communication? We combine various words to form sentences and they convey to others what we have in mind. Words, in any language, are the basic elements of communication.
Her research interests include neuroscience of decision-making in humans, neuroimaging, and neuro-stimulation. Author: Priyamvada Modak is a PhD student in Neuroscience and Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington, USA.
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