This study elicits iconicity ratings for Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) from L1 HKSL Deaf signers and L1 Cantonese hearing non-signers, as well as non-signer guessing accuracy, and compares these norms with other sign languages. Iconicity ratings were collected for 972 HKSL signs from Deaf signers and hearing non-signers and correlated with guesses made by hearing non-signers in three guessing paradigms, that is, three-alternative forced choice (3AFC) translation selection, 3AFC video selection and an open-ended (open cloze) response task. HKSL signs were rated for iconicity comparably to American Sign Language (ASL) and Israeli Sign Language (ISL), with Deaf signers rating signs with higher iconicity overall. We also correlated HKSL iconicity ratings across signs with synonymous translations from languages with available ratings, ASL (634 signs), ISL (158 signs) and British Sign Language (99 signs). Guessing accuracy was found to correlate with higher HKSL iconicity ratings. As for semantic transparency, 3AFC guessing results indicate that many signs are in fact ‘translucent’, whereby inference based on the context provided by answer choices allows hearing non-signers to select the target answer with high accuracy. Our open-ended guessing task yielded considerably lower accuracy; however, accurate responses (2,183 of 15,228) were found to correlate with higher iconicity ratings.

We investigate the implications of penalizing incorrect answers to multiple-choice tests, from the perspective of both test-takers and test-makers. To do so, we use a model that combines a well-known item response theory model with prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk, Econometrica 47:263–91, 1979). Our results reveal that when test-takers are fully informed of the scoring rule, the use of any penalty has detrimental effects for both test-takers (they are always penalized in excess, particularly those who are risk averse and loss averse) and test-makers (the bias of the estimated scores, as well as the variance and skewness of their distribution, increase as a function of the severity of the penalty).

A theoretical model is given for dealing with omitted responses. Two special cases are investigated.

In an influential recent paper, Hawthorne, Rothschild, and Spectre (“HRS”) argue that belief is weak. More precisely: they argue that the referent of believe in ordinary language is much weaker than epistemologists usually suppose; that one needs very little evidence to be entitled to believe a proposition in this sense; and that the referent of believe in ordinary language just is the ordinary concept of belief. I argue here to the contrary. HRS identify two alleged tests of weakness – the neg-raising and weak upper bounds tests, as I call them – which they claim believe and think pass. But I identify several other expressions in ordinary English for attributing belief, all of which fail both tests. Therefore, even if HRS are correct that believe and think refer to a weak attitude, it does not follow that the ordinary concept of belief is weak. I conclude by raising some problems for the accounts of belief as guessing, building on HRS's arguments, due to Kevin Dorst, Matt Mandelkern, and Ben Holguín.