Osgood (1960) showed with his research that the difference between cultures was not as big as people thought. Participants from three different countries (and cultures) were asked to link emotions to form descriptive words (such as thick, thin, horizontal, vertical, up, down, etc …). It turned out that 90% percent of the links in all three countries corresponded. The 10% of the links that differed were most likely due to translation problems.

Newly hatched baby chicks peck at photographs of simulated grains, and strongly prefer them if lit as if from above. Turn the photograph over and they shun it. This seems to show that baby chicks ‘know’ that light in their world normally comes from above. But since they have only just hatched out of the egg, how do they know? Have they learned it during their three days of life? It is perfectly possible, but I tested it experimentally and found it not to be so. I raised chicks and tested them in a special cage in which only light they ever saw came from below. Experience of pecking grain in this upside-down world would, if anything, teach them to prefer upside-down photographs of solid grains. Instead, they behaved exactly like normal chicks raised in the real world with light coming from above. Apparently because of genetic programming, all the chicks prefer to peck at photographs of solid objects lit from above. The solidity illusion (and hence, if I am right, the ‘knowledge’ of the predominant direction of light in the real world) seems to be genetically programmed in chicks – what we used to call ‘innate’ – rather than learned as (I’m guessing) it probably is in us. (Dawkins, 2004)

Lakoff and Johnson (1999) saw that there are many proverbs and sayings that have to do with form characteristics and emotions. Large: important, complex, not always better, difficult, rich, distinguished. Small: simple, fine, less important, unobtrusive, poor, submissive, modest.

Lakoff and Johnson (1999) saw that there are many proverbs and sayings that have to do with form characteristics and emotions. Upwards / rising / increasing: becoming important, conceited, richer, making things positive. Downwards / falling / getting smaller: worsen, giving up, no chance, despondent, making things negative, poorer.

Simonds (1983) connects a rising composition with optimism, success and happy feelings, falling with pessimism, defeat and depression.

In the vicinity of most Russian cities, large, open pits were dug into which the corpses of the murdered, drowned, suicides, etc. were thrown. These pits were only filled in after Easter. The people called such a pit ‘ubogij dom’ (house of the poor). This term means in Old Russian, as in practically all Slavic languages: “poor, needy.” It is a derivation consisting of the prefix u-: ‘away, down’ and the stem ‘bog’. So the original meaning is: ‘without bog’, i.e. ‘who has been deprived of his share of prosperity and fortune’, hence ‘poor, who knows no wealth’ and especially ‘dead, who has been deprived of his share in life’. Therefore, the pit of the violent dead was called “uboji dom”, i.e. “house of the dead or poor.”

(Vyncke, 1969)

One of the main differences between up and down in the world is the predominant direction of light. While not necessarily directly overhead, the sun’s rays generally come from above rather than below. This fact opens an important way in which we, and many other animals, can recognise solid three-dimensional objects. It works in reverse.

(Dawkins, 2004)

(About the primaeval worm, our ancestor of 590 million years ago.) Why is there a dorsal side and a ventral side? The argument is similar (as with the fore and aft asymmetry), and the one applies to starfish just as much as to worms. Gravity being what it is, there are lots of inevitable differences between up and down. Down is where the sea bottom is, down is where the friction is, up is where the sunlight comes from, up is the direction from which things fall on you. It is unlikely that dangers will threaten equally from below and above, and in any case those dangers are likely to be qualitatively different. So our primitive worm should have a specialised upper or ‘dorsal’ side and a specialised ‘ventral’ or lower side, rather than simply not caring which side faces the sea bottom and which side faces the sky. (Dawkins, 2004),

De Meijer (1989) investigated the relationships between characteristics of arm movements and emotional expression. He concluded that positive emotions (such as happiness) could be linked to upward movements. Negative emotions (such as anger and sadness) could be linked to downward movements.