THE FORMAL ATTRIBUTES OF A MEDIUM SUCH AS TELEVISION INFLUENCE HOW WE THINK and process information. Similarities between the symbol system and mental representations of the content will facilitate comprehension of the instructional message. Different media are defined by three characteristics: The technology, the symbol systems employed, and the methods of processing information.

Different symbol systems or codes can represent information in different ways.

Children learn to interpret these "filmic codes" which can be incorporated into cognitive activities. In this way, production features such as montage or cuts can activate respective cognitive processes such as inferencing or sequencing.

These codes can actually "stand in" for or "supplant" the cognitive skills themselves, thereby facilitating learning. Features such as zooms and dissolves can be used to model the cognitive skills that they represent.

The notion of representational codes or formal features of television and their role and effects in the processing of television information has become an area of much research

The formal features of television are those auditory and visual features that result from specific production techniques independent from content, the message, or story to be conveyed.

Formal features include but are not limited to the visual features of zooms, camera movements cuts and dissolves montage techniques, animation, wipes, program pace and special visual effects, as well as the auditory features of music, sound effects, and unusual voices.

For the most part, the effects of the formal features of television have been considered with regard to the particular cognitive processes or skills with which they are associated, attention and comprehension.

Albert Bandura

Two approaches to understanding the way in which children attend to television have emerged. These are, the reactive theory which views a child as a passive receptor of information and stimuli, and the active theory which suggested children cognitively interact with the information being presented and the viewing environment.

The reactive theory is derived from Albert Bandura's social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) which suggests that salient formal features of the television programming gain and maintain the viewers attention.



The active theory suggests that the child actively applies strategies based on previous experiences with the content and formal features, personal knowledge structures and available cognitive skills.

There is not a great deal of empirical knowledge related to the cognitive effects of television code. Experiments have explored the use of filmic codes to both model or supplant cognitive skills and to call on or activate them.

The work of Gavriel Salomon constitutes the most comprehensive series of empirical studies focused on the symbol system and code of television.

Elena Lopez Mateos

mateos@mail.sdsu.edu