The rate of uptake of information from a brief visual presentation was investigated by a method of backward masking (Sperling, 1963) for two types of visual characters (digits and Landolt C’s). The results showed that encoding of information from the Landolt C’s occurred two to three times more slowly than for the overlearned, but more complex, numerals. Additional practice failed to reduce this disparity. A second experiment showed that it was not due to restricted cue size, although more severe size restriction did reduce still further the rate of uptake of information.