In two experiments, we investigated, whether the intelligibility of spoken words in noise is modulated by their affective valence. In Experiment 1, participants listened to words of semantically positive, neutral, or negative valence pronounced by a neutral voice and masked by speech-spectrum noise. The task was to write down as much as they understood of each 4-syllable word combination. Accuracy was significantly higher for positive and negative word combinations compared with semantically neutral word combinations. In Experiment 2 (data collection in progress) , we investigated, whether speech intelligibility is equally affected, if formerly (semantically) neutral words take on an affective valence due to evaluative conditioning (EC). Three 4-syllable word combinations spoken each by one of three different neutral voices were paired with positive, neutral, or negative images during an EC-phase. The word combinations spoken by the assigned voice were rated before and after the EC-phase, showing evidence of successful evaluative conditioning. Afterwards, participants completed the same task as in Experiment 1, thus permitting to assess the effects of experimentally manipulated valence on speech intelligibility (a) for the formerly neutral words, and (b) for the three voice timbres consistently paired with negative, neutral or positive images.