So we, as a culture, introduce mental similarity using words. From childhood we hear people say “fear” and “surprise” in particular contexts. The sound of each word (or, later in life, the written form of each word) creates enough statistical regularity within each category, and statistical differences between them, to get us started. The words quickly prompt us to infer the goals to anchor each concept. Without the words “fear” and “surprise,” these two concepts would likely not spread from person to person.
I am sighing at the audism here. Signs are words. Emotion signs are words with high iconicity
