On the Importance of Being Vocal: Saying “Ow” Improves Pain Tolerance

Genevieve Swee, Annett Schirmer

Vocalizing is a ubiquitous pain behavior. Here we investigated whether it helps alleviate pain and sought to discern potential underlying mechanisms. Participants were asked to immerse one hand into painfully cold water. On separate trials, they said "ow", heard a recording of them saying "ow", heard a recording of another person saying "ow", pressed a button, or sat passively. Compared to sitting passively, saying "ow" increased the duration of hand immersion. Although on average, participants predicted this effect, their expectations were uncorrelated with pain tolerance. Like vocalizing, button pressing increased the duration of hand immersion and this increase was positively correlated with the vocalizing effect. Hearing one's own or another person's "ow" were not analgesic. Together, these results provide first evidence that vocalizing helps individuals cope with pain. Moreover, they suggest that motor more than other processes contribute to this effect.