6 Understanding Visual and Verbal Messages

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the problem of poor comprehension of the information presented in a movie or on television. The chapter also explores whether information can be equally well presented via a movie or television and via a text, or whether the filmic or text medium is more efficient for certain kinds of information transmission. Movie refers to both movies and television and to any dual media presentation consisting of visual, usually moving, images or pictures, together with auditory, and sometimes printed language. The four models for processing and storing dual media input include (1) Model A, which has a single processing unit and a single storage, (2) Model B, which has a single processing unit and dual code storage, (3) Model C, which has two processing units and a single storage, and (4) Model D, which has two processing units and dual code storage. The input consists of two types of material—namely, auditory or verbal (A) and visual or pictorial (V). The processors recognize and encode the material. Encoding refers to knitting together of the raw material into concepts with links. The processors thus spin out a cohesive conceptual base and send it to storage.