[The cognition of intra-familial kinship terms among junior high school students]

A cognitive task concerning intra-familial kinship terms was imposed on 125 junior high school students (male 57, female 68). Forty-six questions were read successively and subjects were required to answer each item. These questions consisted of two types; one required the subjects to identify various familial relationship (e.g. "my uncle") from everyday description (e.g. "my parent's brother"), and the other presented relationship through legal degree of relationships (e.g. "my parent's parent's male child, other than my parent"), some questions of both types containing redundant information concerning gender. The main results were as follows. (1) Correct percentages on lineal relatives regardless of question type were very high. (2) High correlation between related gender-differentiated kinship terms was observed. (3) While questions employing ordinary expressions yielded higher correct percentages than those expressed in legal terms, redundant information reduced correct percentages when combined with ordinary expression.