Plato’s problem that Chomsky applies to speakers’ knowledge of word meaning concerns the disparity between impoverished evidence given and perfect knowledge attained. This study explored whether the attained knowledge of word meaning is stable, articulated and known to adult speakers of Japanese. 118 university students judged twice the degree in which they knew the meanings of words (knowledge score) and the degree in which they could use the words in sentences (usage score), with two different intervening tasks being given between the two judgments. Some speakers engaged in a task of defining the meaning of the words and using them in sentences, while others did not. Findings showed that knowledge scores were comparable in the first judgments, while knowledge score decreased in the second judgments only for the speakers given a task of definition. No change was found in usage score regardless of the intervening tasks. Analyses of descriptions provided in the task of definition and use showed that the meanings of words were neither articulated nor known in detail to the speakers. These findings are not compatible with Plato's problem.

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The present study investigated the relation of academic achievement, family and classroom social environment, and peer interactions to prosocial and antisocial behavior of Chinese children in elementary schools. Five hypotheses were empirically tested: (1) Academic achievement is associated positively with prosocial behavior, and negatively with delinquent behavior; (2) family social environment is associated positively with prosocial behavior, and negatively with delinquent behavior; (3) classroom social environment is associated positively with prosocial behavior, and negatively with delinquent behavior; (4) prosocial behavior of children is associated positively with positive peer influence, and delinquent behavior is associated positively with negative peer influence; and (5) prosocial behavior of children is associated positively with peer’s prosocial behavior, and delinquent behavior is associated positively with peer’s delinquent behavior. All the hypotheses, except Hypothesis 3, were clearly supported by the data. Hypothesis 3 was only partially supported by the data.

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Adolescent boys and girls were compared with middle-aged men and postmenopausal women on their performance on 3-dimensional space perception test. Results indicate that sex difference was evident only for the adolescent group and not for the middle-aged. Adolescent boys performed significantly better compared to girls. Age difference on spatial task performance was obtained only for males and not for females where postmenopausal women outperformed adolescent girls. Findings are explained in terms of progressive hemispheric lateralization and psychological differentiation across the life span.

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The paper examined the impact of stated son preference on the intelligence of boys and girls from a developing country. It was hypothesized that preference for sons enhances the intelligence among boys whereas it hampers the intelligence of girls. The sample comprised of 204 boys and 213 girls studying in grade 6 to 8 in an urban centre of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. A detailed questionnaire was administered to mothers which elicited information on the socio-economic characteristics of the household. The Coombs IS Index was used to measure son preference. Intelligence of the children was measured by the Standard Progressive Matrices and the z-scores were used as the dependent measure. Multiple regression analysis indicated that household income and son preference were positively correlated with the intelligence of boys and explained 14 percent of the variance in intelligence. In contrast, son preference was negatively correlated with the intelligence of girls and along with education of mother explained 17.8 percent of variance in the intelligence of girls, It was concluded that son preference has a differential impact on the intelligence of boys and girls which appears to be mediated through several social, cultural, and economic pathways.

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Three experiments were performed to examine how the spatial arrangement of two texture squares affected the occurrence of texture laciness, which is named by Watanabe and Cavanagh (1992). When two texture squares were presented with a part of them overlapping, one square is seen through the other in front of it for some arrangement. Varied were the area of the overlapping region of the squares and the compound outline produced by the squares. Ten undergraduates rated the stimuli generated on a color CRT display according to texture laciness. The experiments showed that the rating of laciness was higher where the compound outline of the squares was easily decomposed into two squares rather than where it was not. The area of the overlapping region did not produce any difference. The results indicate that texture laciness is affected by perceptual organization of the squares in the display.

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The aim of this study was to re-analyze the performance of traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients on the available neuropsychological tests, and to introduce how to develop a desirable screening test battery. The relationship between the cognitive status and the sub-scale scores of the neuropsychological tests such as Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) was analyzed by step-wise multiple-regression analyses. Four facets of cognitive status were the criterion variables (scholastic ability, memory, attention, and information processing speed), which were rated by four medical staff members. The explanatory variables were the sub-test scores of WAIS-R, Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test, Mini-Mental State Examination, Prose Recall Test, and Letter Cancellation Test. Based on the findings of multiple-regression analyses, a desirable screening test battery was proposed.

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