ABSTRACT
Knowledge of both the neurophysiology of the brain, that underlines the functions of its information centers, and the psychology of the mind, that indicates its mental operations, are important foundations for the study of visual learning. However, they are not enough. To complete the study pertaining to the factors involved in the recognition and appreciation of television images, cultural factors relating to the individual viewer, to society, and the media institutions to which an individual is exposed, and to the idiosyncratic nature of the television medium must also be added and examined. After all, individual viewers control both their biological and psychological activities and make the final cognitive decision as to the meanings they wish to assign to the pictures they watch. However, viewers of the visual communication medium of television do not exist in a vacuum. They belong to a cultural environment that provides them with skills, habits, norms, and learning, all of which shape their behavioral attitudes and form their experiences and memory systems. Standards for the recognition and final appraisal of television images can only be drawn accurately if the cultural factors that relate to individual viewers within society and the media are properly examined. This is precisely the purpose of this chapter.
