Today's literature on the psychology of learning points out that intelligent learning is the formation of concept structures communicated and manipulated by means of symbols. The study presented in this paper examines the learning of biology by means of unguided viewing of television using two different television symbol systems: story animation and documentary. The Story Animation Code consists of unusual complex illustrations and the Documentary Code is made up of scientific symbols--models, schematic drawings, and other drawings used in the teaching of science. Results demonstrate the educational potential of television in out-of-school situations. Viewing television broadcasts presenting biological concepts resulted in a significant improvement in knowledge. Gain, calculated by posttest minus pretest scores, was found in both codes and the students were equally sympathetic to them. Better knowledge gain and more positive attitudes were found towards the story animation code, but the gain was also accompanied by misconceptions. Results support the theory that perception of the visual field does not depend merely on sight-related factors. Even when no similarity exists between the pictorial representation and reality, a series of inferences can still be drawn from the picture by using the information it contains about itself. (Contains 16 references.) (AEF)