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Two experiments were conducted on edited TV newscast sequences to clarify effects of film accompaniment on learning from heard news text. In Experiment 1,150 British subjects viewed a sequence with either film format throughout or alternating film and 'talking head' format between items. Those items that were presented by 'talking heads' in the mixed sequence were learned better with film format, in which the heard text was accompanied by appropriate moving pictures. However, no effect of uniform context was found on the remaining items. In Experiment 2, 91 German subjects viewed one of four versions of a bulletin, one with 'talking head', one with film throughout, the other two having complementary mixed-format patterns. Besides confirming a beneficial effect of film presentation over 'talking head' which accords with the findings of all studies of learning from material in the form of national network newscasts, the results showed an impairing effect of uniform visual format. This can explain 'contradictory' findings, notably with atypical test material.Despite progress in identifying presentation and viewer factors in learning from television newscasts (Wooddall, Davis, and Sahin

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Effects of differences in mean stimulus information under two coding conditions and of sub‐anaesthetic doses of nitrous oxide (15, 25 and 35% in oxygen) were investigated in two card‐sorting experiments with student subjects In Expt. I, in which conventional playing cards were sorted into two, four or eight classes, the effect of the drug increased significantly with task complexity. Expt. II, in which cards bearing numerals were used, showed a drug effect which was independent of task complexity measured by mean information per stimulus. Neither result was to be explained in terms of a drug effect on the motor component of the tasks. Reasons for the difference between the two experiments are considered in relation to other evidence of effects of central nervous depressant drugs on input processes and short‐term memory. The value of communication models for research on effects of drugs on human skills is discussed.