Effects of Natural Language on Multiple Letter Searches

9 American and 9 Turkish subjects were surveyed on multiple letter-search tasks in English, Turkish, and a text of nonwords. The Americans could only understand English, while the Turkish subjects were fluent in both Turkish and English. The parameters measured were the letter-search speed and the number of identifications of two target letters. For searching speed, there was a significant difference for only the text language. The text of nonwords was searched at the lowest speed of all by both groups of subjects. In the case of the target-letter search, only fluency in a language was a significant factor. Also, when nonwords were used, performances declined on both tasks. We conclude that language familiarity is a more important factor than the language of the text when searching for multiple target letters.