Fifty-five Indian students between the ages of 16 and 22 years were selected from the junior and senior English classes at the Fort Sill Indian School to examine the effects of background music in helping lower socio-economic American Indians understand film content and in manipulating their emotions. This study also looked at how cognitive style affects an individual's processing of what he sees or hears. In the first group, 32 seniors were given Witkin's Group Embedded Figures Test and then shown a 15-minute sound film, "One-Eyed Men Are Kings." The 23 juniors in the second group were shown the same film, but without the sound; all other aspects of the research were the same. A multiple regression analysis was run on all subjects to see if cognitive style, English grades, or amount of time spent watching television, could be used as predictors to determine a person's level of comprehension of film content. The results indicate that sound, even when it is only background music with minimal sound effects, seems to be essential to the understanding of film. Also, disadvantaged Indians have the same percentage of field dependents, field independents, and indiscriminates as do the general population. A 50-item bibliography is attached. (CHC)