Of all basic emotions surprise is the least understood for different reasons. We propose Affective conceptual Space Model for understanding emotions in general and surprise in particular. This model is based on J. Panksepp's analysis of affective states at three levels and Gardenfors' analysis of conceptual space. The primary level is sub-cortical and reflects the in-built functions of the brain, the secondary level is largely upper limbic and supports behavioral changes arising from autonomic and mostly unconscious mechanisms of learning and memory and the tertiary level is mainly neo-cortical and it reveals the emotion-cognition interpenetrance responsible for language, thought, art and culture. Three experiments have been designed for understanding and explaining surprise at three levels --- personality level, focus of attention level and emotion recognition level. Our results show evidence of both universality and cultural relativity of surprise: the same emotional causal mechanism can bring about different emotional components in different cultural settings.