Two themes are stated and explored. One is the reliance of current theories concerned with universal properties of psychological organization of language on data drawn from English and the consequent need to carry out psycholinguistic research in languages other than English. The second is an expansion of Campbell's dictum on the necessity of specifying similarities between cultures as well as differences; this is extended beyond the area of cross-cultural studies in perception into cross-cultural psycholinguistic research and cross-cultural cognitive assessment in general.