Pitch-based correspondences related to abstract concepts

Abstract

Previous investigations have shown pitch-based correspondences with various perceptual and conceptual attributes. The present study reveals two novel pitch-based correspondences with highly abstract concepts. Three experiments with varying levels of implicitness of the association task showed that the concepts of future and in are associated with high-pitch sounds, while past and out are associated with low-pitch sounds. Hence, pitch-based correspondences can be observed even with temporal concepts that cannot be unambiguously represented in any perceptual format, at least, without spatial metaphorization. The correspondence effects were even more robust with the abstract temporal concepts of future/past than with more concrete spatial concepts of in/out. We propose that these effects might emerge from semantic multimodal abstraction processes mediated by affective dimensions of particular concepts.