Brief visual memory for English and Arabic letters

American and Arabic Ss were asked to make whole and partial reports on briefly presented letter arrays in English and Arabic script. None of the ratios between whole and partial report suggests the availability of excess sensory storage. For the Arab Ss, who were bilingual to varying degrees, comparison of the scripts was ambiguous. The American Ss had access to over three familiar letters in whole report, as expected, but were able to report less than one of the Arabic symbols. These results appear counter to the visual storage hypothesis.