Sign as a Signal

"If we speculate about he evolution of communication, it is evident that a very important stage in this evolution occurs when the organism gradually ceases to respond quite "automatically" to the mood-signs of another and becomes able to recognize the sign as a signal: that is, to recognize that the other individual's and its own signals are only signals, which can be trusted, distrusted, falsified, denied, amplified , corrected, and so forth.

Clearly this realization that signals are signals is by no means complete even among the human species. we all too often respond automatically to newspaper headlines as though this stimuli were..." (Gregory Bateson; 1972)

"Signals Are Signals"