ABSTRACT
One of the most prevalent visual stimuli available to citizens of developed countries is television. Ninety-six percent of American homes have television sets and by the time the average child graduates from high school he has watched television for more hours than he has attended school. Curiously, despite the omnipresence of television in our lives and the many hours spent watching by young children, we have little theory of and even less information about the processing and learning of visual information from television. Most television research is concerned with after the fact recall, comprehension, and behavior. We know very little about the moment-to-moment processing of information by the viewer while he is watching. We know very little about what controls the viewer's allocation of attention within the television presentation.
