ARE VISUAL-SEARCH PROCEDURES ADAPTED TO THE NATURE OF THE SCRIPT

are processed differently from other shapes in a visual search task wh ere subjects have to decide whether or not a predesignated target symb ol is present in a subsequently presented string of five such symbols. If the M-shaped letter search function, which relates correct reactio n time to target position, reflects an efficient strategy used in word recognition, it should be produced by skilled readers of English who also read a logographic script. A cross-linguistic study of biscriptal Mandarin/English and monoscriptal English readers (Expt 1) provided e vidence of the generality of a basic search strategy for alphabetic ta rgets. Hand-of-response affected the search function in an asymmetric fashion for both groups of readers, and although case differences betw een target and string increased reaction times overall, the classic M- shaped function remained. In Expt 2, we used a within-subjects design and examined the extent to which biscriptal Mandarin/English readers p roduced different search functions for letters and logographs. Consist ent with expectation, these readers showed an M-shaped function for le tters but a more U-shaped function for logographs. Hand-of-response ex erted a consistent effect for both types of material. Taken together, these experiments support the view that skilled readers develop script -specific procedures.