Аннотация:The influence of linguistic background on cognitive task performance was identified as one of prospective research areas in the early 80s. New technologies evoke a new interest to investigation in this area. However, most of the studies on linguistic experience and cognitive skills have been conducted on an English-language sample. It becomes obvious that the identification of similarities and differences in language processing should be studied in systems with different language organization, including different writing systems: hieroglyphic, syllabic and alphabetic writing. The current study involved participants of three language groups (Russian, Chinese and Japanese, n=64) who took part in an eye-tracking experiment on semantic visual search. The participants were asked to look for meaningful English words in 18 different letter matrices (15*15), search success and oculomotor parameters were registered with the SMI RED system. The results indicate significant differences in most of the considered characteristics. Data show that different aspects of linguistic experience (native language, the level of linguistic competence, current proportion of language use) influence word search strategies. Task performance seems to be associated with specific oculomotor patterns, indicating a high level of cognitive processing with longer fixations on the relevant information and faster glides along irrelevant noise. The findings not only clarify the influence of linguistic experience on the cognitive architecture of semantic search but also sets directions for technology implementation in linguistic competence assessment.