Japanese children and Japanese adults have been found to be superior to their American Caucasian counterparts on spatial ability. This difference has been explained in terms of genetics, social pressure and environmental factors. The present paper isolates the possible influence of a knowledge of kanji on visuo-spatial performance. Subjects from the following groups were tested: Japanese (with kanji education), Americans of Japanese ancestry (with no kanji experience), and Caucasians (with and without a knowledge of kanji). Two experiments to examine spatial ability were carried out. The first investigated spatial visualization (memory for position of objects in space) and the second spatial orientation (the memory for spatial movement-hand and body). Japanese subjects performed better than their Caucasian counterparts, regardless of their knowledge of kanji. However, performance of those brought up in Japan (both Japanese and Caucasian) was found to be superior to that of those who spent all their lives in the West (both Japanese and Caucasian) on some of the spatial tasks. Cognitive strategies and the question of genetic and environmental factors are considered.