Visual literacy literature published during 1965-1975 was surveyed. Entries cited in psychological abstracts, dissertation abstracts, Scientific American, Resources in Education (RIE), and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) were grouped under the following categories: definition, information transmission, advanced organization, attention holding ability, and media construction (the largest category). General trends within each category are discussed. Definitions of visual literacy are considered in the first category, defining a visually literate person as one able to perceive and understand a situation when using pictures of 35mm slides, complemented by either oral or written instruction. Modes of information intake and reproduction and visual/verbal organizers, as they affect learning, are then discussed. The realism theory and related variables are reviewed in the media construction category. Continuum theorists hypothesize that visuals at the realistic end of the spectrum facilitate greater amounts of learning than visuals from other locations on the continuum, bounded at one end by simple abstract "line drawings" and at the other end by photographs of the actual object. This theory was found not to hold since a greater amount of learning was facilitated by simple line abstract drawings. Suggestions for future research related to missing visual literacy links are provided. (Author/JN)