Presents a study on kindergarten children's processing of explicit and implicit information. Results indicated distraction reduced visual attention, and five-year olds excelled on the comprehension of implicit information. Distraction had little effect on processing implicit information, but a significant effect on comprehension of explicit…

Rich visual stimuli provided by the television medium may affect youngsters' cognitive processes and strategies in academic performance. Previous studies have revealed that television viewing enhances their achievement test scores through grade four, but scores decline after grade four. This paper suggests that visuals used in instructional…

Today's literature on the psychology of learning points out that intelligent learning is the formation of concept structures communicated and manipulated by means of symbols. The study presented in this paper examines the learning of biology by means of unguided viewing of television using two different television symbol systems: story animation…

Experimental phenomenology requires that educators acknowledge the experiences of the learner. Today, many of those experiences are images that come from television. In a behaviorist or humanist tradition, learning takes place through experience, and learners comprehend, make decisions, and analyze their behavior through reflection. Meaning is…

Examines modality differences in preschoolers' ability to recognize or recall temporally related events and extends Ward and Wackman's model by evaluating whether the assumed "visual viewing style" applies to preschoolers' processing of temporal relations. Results demonstrated that temporally related events were remembered more…

A study investigated the learning impact of audio, visual, and audiovisual information channels in televised messages among preschool children. The messages consisted of a half-hour videotape of "Sesame Street" episodes (presented to 48 subjects), and a videotape of an intact "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" program (presented to…

A study examined the effects of visual-verbal redundancy and recaps on learning from television news. Two factors were used: redundancy between the visual and audio channels, and the presence or absence of a recap. Manipulation of these factors created four conditions: (1) redundant pictures and words plus recap, (2) redundant pictures and words…

Since 1989, Channel One has broadcast a 10-minute newscast with two minutes of commercials. In exchange for receiving the Channel One broadcast, schools promise that 90% of the students will watch Channel One for 92% of the time; that each program must be watched in its entirety; that a show cannot be interrupted; and that teachers cannot turn the…

Visual processing of televised information was compared among 85 Japanese and 111 American boys and girls at the kindergarten and 4th-grade levels. The literatures on cognition and learning indicate that language and child rearing factors are more conducive to the development of iconic processing skills in Japanese children than in American…

This collection covers a variety of workshops and presentations related to the research, theory, technology, or implementation of some aspect of visual literacy. More than 40 authors are represented, with 12 of the papers dealing directly with television. The document begins with an overview and a keynote address by Neil Postman. Individual papers…

Noting that both the structural characteristics of television and the characteristics of the viewer may influence comprehension of television news, a study tested the hypothesis that the synchronous presentation of television news will maximize learning for viewers with low prior knowledge of program content. Synchronous and nonsynchronous…