See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning (1945)

able to reduce the training of me- chanics from nine months to nine ■weeks. It was also found that indi- viduals with no particidar gift of tongues could learn to talk such difficult languages as colloquial Chi- nese and fapanese. According to a iitatemcnt in the Navy Training Aids Manual" tests have shown that stu- dents learn up to 35 per cent more in a given time in some learning areas. 2. The use of audio-visual materials results ill greater permanence of learning. Although the value of audio-visual materials as a means of presenting factual materials is clear- ly indicated by the great weight of research findings, this value becomes even more marked when a study is made of the contribution that these materials make to retention of learned information. Knowlton and Tilton- foimd that film-taught pu- pils retained from 19 to 25 per cent more after three months of forget- ting. Rulon"' reported that the re- tained gain of the film group was 38.5 per cent greater than that of the control group so that at the end of three months the net gain in knowledge due to the use of film materials was 58.5 per cent above the gain of the control group. The thorough visualization of entire areas of training by the Navy also gave training officers an opportunity to observe how the use of many differ- ent types of audio-visual materials affected retention of knowledge. Their tests* showed that facts learned through visualized instruction are remembered up to 55 per cent longer. 5. Audio-visual materials can be used as a powerful means of influencing attitudes and behavior responses. Reproducing, as they do, actual situ- ations with great realism, certain audio-visual aids, such as motion pictures, television, radio, and other means of dramatization, have the power to affect emotions in a power- ful manner. As the learner watches and listens to a motion picture or listens to a dramatic radio story, he projects himself into the action and becomes utterly absorbed in it by identifying himself with characters and situations. The three generally recognized controls of behavior dis- cussed by Prescott in Emotion and the Educative Process,'" feelings, emotions and attitudes, may all be affected. Peterson and Thurston in their study of Motion Pictures and Social Attitudes of Children'^^ reported that the attitude of children toward a social value can be measurably changed by the showing of one mo- tion picture. They also found that the effect of motion pictures appears to be cumulative. Two films are more potent than one and three sur- pass two in their power to influence attitudes. They also concluded that these attitude changes tend to be- come a substantially permanent part of an individual's pattern of think- ing. The idea that the viewing of a film is necessarily a passive act was refuted by these experimenters. By using sensitive instruments of the "lie detector" type to record emotional changes they showed that continuous emotional fluctuations occur when a person is watching a film in an apparently quiet manner. They reported that changes of this kind may be slight or may be so pronounced in nature as to lay a basis for definite changes in the overt behavior and the pattern of social values of an individual. These con- clusions can be verified by every individual who has found a film, radio, or play dramatization emo- tionally stirring. 4. Audio-visual materials are of value as a means of devloping ability to think. Since the quality of the rearrangement of ideas that consti- tutes the thinking process is depend- ent upon the clarity of mental con- (CONTINUED ON PAGE FORTY) MAY • 1947 37