A study of the substituent e ects upon the vicinal proton± proton coupling 3 J Me to methyl groups has been carried out from data sets of experimental and calculated 3 J Me couplings in ethane, denoted 3 J 0 Me , monosubstituted ethanes, denoted 3 J X Me , and 1,1-disubstituted ethanes, denoted 3 J XY Me , with substituents of the second (C, N, O and F), third (Si, P, S and Cl), fourth (Ge, As, Se and Br) and ® fth (Sn, Sb, Te and I) rows of the periodic table. The calculations of 3 J Me couplings were performed at the self-consistent ® eld ab initio level using the 6-31G** basis set. Both the experimental and the calculated 3 J X Me couplings of monosubstituted ethanes showa quadratic (or exponential) decay with the relative electronegativity D c X of the substituents in each row. Di erent decays are found for each row suggesting a periodic behaviour for the e ect of the a atom upon 3 J X Me in addition to the dependence on D c X . The 3 J X Me couplings have been analysed using di erent re® ned equations formulated from a substituent e ect model. A data set of 33 experimental couplings is satisfactorily ® tted by two di erent re® ned equations including a quadratic dependence on D c X for the e ects of the individual substituents and a cross-term on D c X D c Y for the e ects of interaction between substituents. In the ® rst equation, with nine parameters, the periodic trends in the plots of 3 J X Me against D c X are considered by using di erent coe cients for each row in the linear term in D c X . In the second equation, with seven parameters, a unique coe cient is used for the term in D c X and the periodicity is embodied into a linear term in the relative hardness of the substituent D h X .