ABSTRACT
Even if specific filmic coding elements can be made to affect the mastery of mental skills, we are left with the question of whether the same effects occur naturally under less controlled conditions. Do the symbol systems of film or television, as commonly employed, affect children’s mental skills, as children commonly watch movies and television programs? What do children need to bring with them to the viewing situation to be so affected? Restricting such questions to film and television reflects, of course, personal interests more than anything else. Scribner and Cole (1978) had other preferences and asked more or less the same kinds of questions about the effects of literacy.
