The psychology of adaptations Music is a powerful tool for the expression of ideologies, especially when it comes from respected and popular artists. In the 1960s the best known were the Beatles, with their sales of over 500 million records worldwide. Simultaneously with the rise of the Beatles, the 1960s brought the escalation of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was undoubtedly the most controversial in America, and many different artists expressed their opposition, including the Beatles. Through their music, the Beatles conveyed an ideology of peace, union and love and opposed war. However, music is not the most effective vehicle for protest. While music can bring people together, it alone does not educate as comprehensively as a combination of visual and auditory mediums. When music is adapted to also combine a visual aspect, the message and facts are processed and remembered more effectively. Learning is easier when ideas are presented in multimedia form. Additionally, adding visuals benefits memory through the image superiority effect, which dictates that, due to the strong symbolism attached to images, humans are more likely to remember images than words. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Luckily for the Beatles, they not only spread their message of peace through music, but also through images. Two examples of visual adaptations that successfully used the Beatles' music to promote their message are Yellow Submarine, made at the time of the Beatles' popularity, and Across The Universe, a more modern creation. Looking at these two examples is crucial because of the far-reaching messages of the Beatles. They were the best known and most influential, but what made them so? Why have their art and the messages in their art caused such a stir? It's not just due to the Beatles themselves, but the way their music was used. Using certain cognitive structures, adaptations of their music successfully furthered the ideas that the Beatles were attempting to promote. These films used powerful visual techniques that left the ideas memorable and easy to remember. Additionally, the ideology, peaceful protest, and reasoning behind why the Vietnam War was wrong were not always easily understood, and the use of multimedia facilitated education. The idea of ​​the “visual learner” and the “auditory learner” is one that has exploded over the last 10 years, however research is now starting to counter this phenomenon by focusing on universal techniques that aid learning regardless of supposed learning style (Pashler et al., 106). A study conducted at the University of Haifa explored how a multiple-representation model (a sheet that explains concepts using pictures and words) could teach students better than a single-representation model (a sheet that uses only words). The study found that the effect of MR models significantly helped students. The article states: “The different and distinct MRs appeared to offer students the ability to easily notice and identify certain pieces of information within the entire display, thus making it easier for these students to use and manipulate larger quantities and more varied types of information, compared to the students in the SR group who noticed less information based on the single text-only display they were exposed to” (Eilam & Poyas, 376).conclusion of this study was that multiple representations using pictures and words helped students see and select more information, allowing them to use the information more effectively. Additionally, the study found that students exposed to MR models performed better on tests of the material. One might question the reliability of the study due to the “learning styles” theme addressed earlier and suggest that students who were assigned to conditions where visual representations were more likely to perform better on the test and vice versa. However, the groups were selected using random sampling, and the p-value (the probability that the experiment's results are due to chance) was less than 0.05%, the confidence level. This shows that the study findings could be replicated regardless of a student's supposed “learning style”. The results of this study support the theory that to facilitate the teaching of concepts, a combination of multiple mediums is most effective. Yellow Submarine is a film created as an adaptation of the Beatles' music album of the same name. His first impression is of simplicity; the animation is extremely flat with thick outlines and bright colors. Along with the idea of ​​simplicity comes childlike qualities, however The Yellow Submarine is exactly the opposite. It is a critical account of the counterculture, produced at the time of the Vietnam War with the clear intent of protest. This narrative is shown throughout the entire plot, following the story of a struggle between the oppressive "blue bad guys" and the people of Pepperland, preaching the idea of ​​peaceful protest through the use of music as the only weapon to succeed. However, there is more beneath the surface, as some characters are also used to show other themes. The character "Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D." he speaks only in superfluous rhymes, and mentions that if he spoke normally, everyone else would realize that he doesn't actually know what he's talking about (Yellow Submarine, 1968). Jeremy's character is a critical portrait of the upper class of society who uses superficial cues and elitist language to place himself above others, despite having no content or depth. Another representative character is the vacuum cleaner beast, which sucks up everything in search of destruction, ultimately sucking up the entire world and itself. This monster shows the rejection of attention to consumerism, destruction, war and profit. Unlike the plot of Yellow Submarine, these other themes are not obvious at first glance and require the ability to analyze and notice subtle ideas. As discussed previously, multiple representation models involve the use of the combination of two mediums, generally both words and images. Yellow Submarine is an MR model, film imagery and music incorporation are the two mediums used. MR models bring with them advantages, the most important being the viewer's ability to notice more information and spot more subtle themes. This is very important for Yellow Submarine due to its use of subtle themes that criticize certain aspects of society. While the overall theme of pacifism and peace is important, the underlying ideas are just as important and much more subtle. Using an MR model for the film allowed the viewer to more easily notice these themes and understand the narrative taking place without the many different themes being so blatantly obvious that it was confusing for the viewer to keep track of everything. Therefore the adaptation was an important creation due to its greater effectiveness than the music album. Besides the importanceof using multiple mediums, images are extremely important in their own right. The picture superiority effect states that pictures are more likely to be remembered than words, and this is due to the fact that pictures are more easily encoded and are more easily retrieved from memory due to their symbolic nature. Additionally, by assigning a symbol or image to a word, it becomes more memorable. Numerous studies have been done, dating back to the creator of the theory, Allan Paivio. One study, conducted in Sweden, explored how memory interacts with images versus words, to confirm the theory. The authors state: “The second major finding of these experiments was the superior memory accessibility of the studied objects as images. With precision measurements, the image superiority effect is a well-known and extensively studied phenomenon” (Stenberg et al., 436). While the authors acknowledge that the imagery superiority effect has been shown to clearly influence memory accuracy in other studies, the new study results show that imagery also helps with the accessibility of memories. This means that you are better able to remember an item shown through an image and your memory reaction time is also faster. The film Across the Universe is an anti-war critique just like Yellow Submarine, and is also an adaptation of the Beatles' music. However, it takes a different approach to the latter and, instead of using more subtle, underlying themes, takes overt events, particularly historical events, and brings them to the foreground. Because of this, Across the Universe does not require as much critical thinking, but instead requires excessive memory to process and understand all the information provided that promotes the anti-war and counterculture message. For example, certain events such as the 1967 Detroit riot and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. highlight the race relations issues criticized in the film. Additionally, the Vietnam War drafts are a negative highlight, becoming extremely clear in the scene where a character is drafted and treated more like packaged meat than a human being. Sexuality is also discussed when Prudence, a character whose sexuality is unclear but is interested in other women, sings a song in which she pines for another cheerleader, only to sink into an episode of depression later when her crush chooses a man in his place. Across the Universe, 2007). These themes of race relations, sexuality, the anti-war movement, and more, including class relations, drug use, and abuse, are loud and clear throughout the film. The choice to attempt to convey so many different ideas therefore requires the viewer to retain excessive amounts of information via memory. The use of a visual adaptation of music is successful due to the greater memory capacity compared to visual stimulation. As explained in the previous study on the image superiority effect, images are more useful for remembering information. Due to Across the Universe's use of so many strong themes, extreme memory capacity is required. In itself, music does not have the same memory capacity, and by only trying to convey many messages through music, the viewer would not be able to follow everything and would become confused. Thus, by adapting The Beatles' music into a highly visual film, the creators are able to bring out many different themes because a greater memory capacity has been enabled. This is why the choice to adapt the music in this way was successful. These two examples are powerful lessons on.