The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to investigate the effects of visual information, background knowledge, and academic reading experience, and (2) to identify the non-native readers' problems in comprehending Japanese academic texts. Sixty-three foreign students studying at universities and graduate schools in Japan participated in this study. Major findings were as follows: the exhibition of charts and text diagrams did not promote reading comprehension; the students' past experiences of academic text reading influenced the score of the reading comprehension test and strategies of activating visual information; and there was not significant correlation between the amount of background knowledge and the score of reading comprehension tests. Moreover, the cluster-analysis of descriptive data seemed reasonable to support that there would be differences of activating visual information between advanced and novice readers. (Contains 13 references.) (Author/AEF)