Psychological and physiological concepts about information transmission are reviewed with a view toward uncovering principles useful to the design of audiovisual teaching materials. Audiovisual materials which transmit information via the visual or auditory channels are considered, including sound motion pictures, film strips, and audio recordings. Since the focus is limited to teaching and learning situations involving information transmission, audiovisual devices used to provide aesthetic and affective experiences are excluded. Nine chapters deal with: 1) current conceptions of the role of audiovisual devices in learning; 2) the implications of research on audiovisual devices for the design of learning situations; 3) the relative efficiency of auditory and visual transmissions of information and studies of multi-modality transmission; 4) the mechanics of the transmission of information in the central nervous system; 5) the perceptual system as a single channel system; 6) channel switching; 7) concept learning; 8) attention; and 9) a model for information transmission by means of audiovisual materials. An appendix reviews some major concepts of information theory. (PB)