This investigation examined Japanese and American children's styles of processing computerized geometric matrices with a true/false and 1-3 elements and 0-2 transformations. Effectiveness of training in visual animation/construction or in verbal labeling was also considered. Prior to training, the 209 Japanese and American 7-, 10-, and 13-year-olds completed the Raven's Progressive Matrices and tests of perceptual reasoning and spatial relations. No outstanding differences were apparent. However, on the test of 108 figural matrices, speed/accuracy trade-off decisions differed for the two cultures. In contrast to American children, Japanese children's error decrease was accompanied by relatively little latency increase between the ages of 7and 10. This finding is attributed to Japanese children's expeditious style of considering task-related information. Moreover, this Japanese style appears to temper traditional gender differences in effectiveness of visual versus verbal training and in encoding spatial rotations.