# Sounds of the future and past

## TL;DR

People associate the future with certain sounds and the past with others, even across different languages.

## Contribution

The study identifies a universal sound symbolism pattern for abstract time concepts.

## Key findings

- Future is linked to high front vowels and voiced fricatives/affricatives.
- Past is associated with /θ/ and voiced stops across multiple languages.
- The sound symbolism effect is not explained by embodied articulation.

## Abstract

We report evidence of sound symbolism for the abstract concept of time across seven experiments (total N = 825). Participants associated the future and past with distinct phonemes (Experiment 1). In particular, using nearly 8000 pseudowords, we found associations between the future and high front vowels and voiced fricatives/affricatives, and between the past and /θ/ and voiced stops (Experiment 2). This association was present not only among English speakers but also by speakers of a closely related language (German) and those of a more distantly related language (Hungarian; Experiment 3). This time‐sound symbolism does not appear to be due to embodied articulation (Experiment 4). In sum, these studies identify a robust time sound symbolism effect, along with tests of underlying mechanisms.