"Be careful on what you say." This is a warning that most people tend to ignore, but now should pay attention to, especially when speaking with people actually experiencing pain. A study now proves that words that relate to pain can affect people who truly understand the meaning of these words.

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Researchers from York University found out that words related to aches, agony and pain can easily spark the interest of people who experience them.

Samantha Fashler, one of the researchers, said that people who suffered frequent chronic pain become more interested on words related to this pain than people who never experienced it.

For this study, Fashler and her colleagues use an eye-tracker that can test the reaction time of their subjects.

She explained that eye movements reflect the things that spark people's interest; knowing the things that people pay attention to can be helpful in determining who experience chronic pain.

Joel Katz, another researcher involved in the study, said that the eye-tracker opened up new avenues to chronic pain research.

He added this can help chronic pain researchers know the experiences of people suffering from chronic pain and how this can influence the notion of pain on other patients.

Previous research used so-called dot-probe tasks to test reaction time, but researchers found out that the eye-tracking technology can capture eye-gaze patterns more precisely.

They also said that the eye-tracker helped them define the frequency and the duration an individual looked at sensory pain words.

Researchers believe that this data can help identify if these words could intensify the pain, or would not affect people who experience them.