The purpose of this study was to investigate whether differences in the level of visual complexity in motion visuals have an effect on cognitive learning of students in different grade levels. The instructional content was a 14-minute video lesson concerning the motion of objects in the universe. A 3 (levels of visual complexity) x 2 (grade…

This study examines the contributions of infant temperament and maternal style to the development of behavioral inhibition during the first year of life. It was hypothesized that children whose mothers allowed them to experience small amounts of frustration, thereby allowing the child to develop coping strategies for such situations, would show…

Several current television series for preschool children convey stories, not through meaningful dialogue, but through visual information and intonational cues embedded within nonsensical dialogue. This study examined young children's ability to construct meaning from such materials. Participating were 135 preschoolers, 3 to 5 years old. Subjects…

The effects of visual grouping strategies involving animated and static graphic presentations on learning were studied. Also studied was the ability of students to learn a scientific rule presented incidentally in an animated sequence in the hope of replicating results from previous research. A total of 39 fourth graders participated in an…

In a study that was conducted to measure performance as a function of multimedia instructions, 360 college students in a University of Colorado introductory psychology course were taught to build a model helicopter from an assembly kit. Their instructions consisted of either viewing a narrated film (one or two viewings), or hands-on practice using…

Rock videos have their antecedents in film and television images, although music in films is usually background music. Television made possible the live transmission of musical numbers with visuals. The musical television commercial is an amalgam of conventions, with background music suddenly erupting into text, unheard by the characters but…

The short-term memory of 24 retarded and 24 nonretarded individuals, aged 10 to 14, under conditions of restricted cognitive strategy use was investigated. An attempt was made to determine whether short-term memory difficulties of persons with mental retardation are caused by deficits in voluntary cognitive strategies, such as the organization and…

A study consisting of two experiments attempted to further adapt the visual preference procedure for determining children's meaningful phonological perception. In the first experiment, 1-year-olds were presented with auditory stimuli (words) and screens containing paired color photographs of the object described by each word and of an unusual…

Theories of cognitive processing suggest specific effects result from different elaboration treatments. To test this assumption, 125 high school students were randomly assigned to read concept materials containing adjunct elaborations that varied by elaboration type (mnemonics, schematics, or metaphors) and presentation mode (verbal or visual). To…

This paper presents a study of the looking and looking away or gaze alternation behavior of both full term and preterm infants in the presence of varying degrees of facial animation. The faces used in the study included, in increasing order of animation, a Raggedy Ann doll's face, a moving and talking doll's face, a mother's less animated face…

This book explores the many visually oriented activities that can be used to teach the composition process. Chapter one outlines the format of the book and discusses the composition process in terms of visual perception and reaction to visual stimuli. Chapter two introduces the general aspects of composition that are pertinent to all types of…

In a study of the effects of pictorial stimuli on story recall, 64 second graders were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and two control groups. The learning materials consisted of two orally presented ten-sentence stories. The experimental subjects viewed pictures while the stories were read, and the control groups followed the printed…

Based on the author's PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas.

A study examined whether pictures presented in advance of reading a text (advance organizers) as compared to pictures presented after reading a text (postorganizers) would significantly enhance the reader's retention of the text's content. Sixty college students rated their familiarity with six topics, then read materials presented on the three…