Download Neisser and Harsch (1992) - ISN Psychology Class of 2016

Session 8: Flashbulb Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odMF4Yhf
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgZcMGCV
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1.
Do you have other very vivid memories
about events that were personally important
to you, though might not have had local,
state, national or international importance?
If so, please list those events.
Evaluate one theory of how emotion
may affect one cognitive process
Brown and Kulik (1977)
 Flashbulb memories are a type of episodic
memory
 It is assumed that they are highly resistant to
forgetting
 This means that the details of the memory
will remain intact and accurate because of the
emotional arousal at the moment of
encoding.
This is a very controversial theory!


A highly accurate and exceptionally vivid
memory of the moment a person is delivered
the news of a shocking event
The “flashbulb” indicates that the event will
be registered like a photograph (i.e. accurate
in detail)

According to Brown and Kulik (1977) we
remember because of two things:
1. The emotional arousal at moment of encoding
2. Memory often rehearsed as it is important or
emotionally salient to individual. This makes the
memory more accessible and vividly remembered
over time

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Brown and Kulik suggest that there are six important
features of FM that people remember in detail:
Place (where they were when they found out)
Ongoing activity (what they were doing)
Informant (how they learned about the incident)
Own affect (how they felt)
Others’ affect (how others felt)
Aftermath (importance of the event &
consequences)
Aim: To investigate whether shocking events are recalled
more vividly and accurately than other events
Procedure:
 Questionnaires
 80 participants (40 black and 40 white Americans)
 Asked whether they recalled vivid memories of hearing
about various assassinations or attempted killings of
national or international figures that had occurred within
a decade.
Results


Participants had vivid & shocking memories of
where they were, what they did, and what they felt
when they first heard about political assassinations
All participants (n=80) had a good recall of
Kennedy’s assassination, BUT they found that black
participants had a better recall of Medgar Evers (a
black civil rights worker) death
Conclusions
Suggested that FM is caused by a neural
mechanism which triggers an emotional
arousal because the event is unexpected or
extremely important



The reliance on retrospective data questions
the reliability of this study. People tend to
interpret an event from their current
perspective.
Other research indicates that although FM is
emotionally vivid it is not necessarily accurate
in regards to details
The photographic model of FM has been
challenged by many other researchers



Conducted a real life study on peoples’
memory of the Challenge disaster
The Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on
January 28, 1986, the Challenger broke apart
73 seconds into its flight, leading to the
deaths of its seven crew members.
This disaster was watched on live TV by
thousands of horrified spectators.
Aim: to test theory of FM by investigating
extent to which memory of a shocking event
would be accurate after a period of time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS
TrmJtHLFU
Procedure:
 106 students in an introductory psychology class
given a questionnaire and asked to write a
description of how they heard the news.
 Also answered 7 questions related to where they
were, what they were doing etc.
 Participants answered questionnaires less than 24
hours after disaster
 2 ½ years later, 44 of the original participants
answered the questionnaire again
 They were also asked to rate on a scale of 1-5 how
confident they were about the accuracy of their
memories and were asked whether they had
completed the questionnaire before
Initial account: “I was in my religion class and some
people walked in and started talking about it…the
schoolteacher’s students had been watching and I
thought it was so sad…I went to my room and
watched the TV…I got all the details from that.”
Follow up account: “When I first heard…I was sitting
in [my] dorm with a roommate watching TV. It
came on a newsflash and we were both totally
shocked. I was really upset and went upstairs to
talk to a friend of mine and then I called my
parents.”
Results
 Only 11 out of 44 remembered that they had filled out
the questionnaire before
 Major discrepancies between original questionnaire
and follow up questionnaire.
Table of Follow up account scores
Score out of 7
Number of
Participants

0
2 or
less
3+
11
22
11
Average level of confidence for follow up was 4.17
Results challenge predictions of FM theory and
question reliability of memory in general
Participants were confident that they remembered
the event correctly both times and they could not
explain the discrepancies between the two
questionnaires
Exam tip: You could
also use this study
as evidence for LO:
Discuss reliability of
memory
Evaluation
 Study was conducted in a natural environment
and has a higher ecological validity that
laboratory experiments on memory
 Participants were psychology students who
participated in exchange for course credits and
may not be representative
 The degree of emotional arousal when witnessing
a shocking public event may be different from
experiencing a shocking event in your personal
life. This could influence how well people
remember a certain event.




Found that participants had very good memories for
highly personal events such as the birth of a brother or
sister.
These accounts remained consistent over time.
Therefore, it may be that flashbulb memories have to
have emotional importance for the person, something
which the Challenger disaster may have lacked.
This provides evidence for flashbulb memories as they
should be memories which are consistent and
unchanging. However, although the memories were
consistent over time, there is no way to tell how
accurate they were to begin with.
How accurate do you think these memories
are? Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzkk0J8Q
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

Read through the article of research of 9/11
memories
Key Studies:
 Talarico & Rubin (2003)
 Phelps et al (2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM4KIw_2
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
Is the theory accurate?

Evidence for FM is mixed. Although
some research suggests that memories of emotional
events are more accurate whereas others suggest
that is our confidence in flashbulb memories
characterises our perceived accuracy and vividness of
the events and flashbulb memories are subject to the
same inaccuracies as everyday memories.

Despite controversy the theory led to further research
and has been modified over time. Some researchers
now suggest FM memory does exist but event needs
to be of personal significance

We are more likely to discuss important
emotional events overtime therefore better
memory may merely be due to more rehearsal
rather than the emotion itself
www.wordle.com
http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm