We report on the experimental results (past and present) concerning the decay from superdeformed states in the mass 190 region and on the two extreme theoretical approaches used to model the process. These two approaches can be combined into one using a chaoticity parameter. The possibilities of studying order-to-chaos properties of normally deformed states are discussed and illustrated by the analysis of the primary decay-out strength distribution in ¹⁹⁴Hg.

PACS numbers: 21.10.--k, 23.20.--g, 23.20.Lv, 24.60.--k