Passive Learning from Television

Learning is generally conceived as active and purposive behavior, involv. ing motivation, practice, achievement. Here, the authors focus on "passive" learning, on what is "caught" rather than "taught," and on the processes by which such learning may take place. Passive learning is typically effortless, responsive to animated stimuli, amenable to artificial aid to relaxation, and characterized bv an absence of resistance to what is learned, thus opening up possibilities that, depending on one's point of view, one may welcome or deplore . Herbert E. Kragman is responsible for corporate public relations and advertisinn research at the General Electric Company. Eugene L. Hartley it Dean of the College of Community Sciences at the University of WisconsinGreen Bay, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology, City College, CUNY.