Flashbulb memory – emotion and cognition are intertwined. Emotions are believed to perform an adaptive function in that they:
- Shape the experience of events
- Guide the individual in how to react to events, objects, and situations, with reference to personal relevance and well-being
Memories of emotional events sometimes have a persistence and vividness the other memories.
Brown and Kulik – Highly detailed, exceptionally vivd snapshot of the moment when a surprising and emotionally arousing event happened.
The theory argues for the existence of a special biological memory mechanism, when triggered by an event exceeding critical levels of surprise, creates a permanent record of the details. Flashbulb memories have:
- different characteristics than ordinary memories
- resistant to forgetting
Biological explanation: witness a shocking event -> amygdala activated -> stress response activated -> release of stress hormones(adrenaline and cortisol) from the adrenal glands -> heart beats faster, sense of fear.
Amygdala – attaches emotional significance to otherwise neutral stimuli. Emotional memory is better remembered and they argue that this is because the amygdala is in communication with other brain regions when a memory is created.
Key Study 1:
- Brown and Kulik
A – To investigate the effect of emotion on cognition of memory
M – Based on questionnaires of nine events with 80 participants, and asked if they recalled the circumstances in which they first heard about the event.
R – 99% recalled the circumstances 13 years after the event, there was also a much lower rate of flashbulb memories among white participants than black participants to the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
C – When participants were emotionally aroused, they form flashbulb memory that is more vivid and detailed, therefore they can recall the circumstances.
Critical analysis:
Strengths:
Limitations:
- There is no way for the researchers to know if any of the participants were lying/actually not sure what was the circumstance.
Key Study 2:
- McGaugh and Cahill
Lab experiment:
A – To investigate the importance of amygdala in the creation of flashbulb memories
- Experiment 1 – To see if the effect of emotions on the cognition of memory
- Experiment 2 – To see whether amygdala is causing the creation of flashbulb memories
M – There were two experiments conducted to test for different things:
- 1 – Participants were divided into two groups, each shown with 12 slides tell two different version of the same story, one rather boring, one more violent.
- Two weeks after participating in the experiment the participants were asked to come back and their memory for specific details of the story were tested.
- 2 – the above procedure was repeated, but this time the participants in the traumatic story condition were injected with a beta-blocker called propranolol(drug that inhibits the effect of adrenaline on the sympathetic nervous system) to prevent activation of the amygdala.
R – There were two experiments conducted to test for different things:
- 1 – the participants who had heard the more emotionally arousing story demonstrated better recall of specific details of the story. They could also recall more details from the slides
- 2- those that had received the beta- blocker did no better than the group that had heard the boring story.
C – The amygdala plays a significant role in the creation of memories linked to emotional arousal. This seems to conclude there is a unique neural basis for these types of memories.
Critical Thinking: The Role of the Amygdala in Flashbulb memories
- Amygdala doesn’t act in isolation from other areas of the brain, must be considered as a complex interaction of neural networks
- can be questioned how much our thoughts might change how fear is experienced and thus influence the strength of the memory.
Key Study 3:
- Neisser and Harsch – challenged Brown and Kulik
Interview:
A – To investigate the effect of emotion on cognition of memory
M – 106 participants were asked to report on their circumstances of when the heard about the Challenger space disaster by completing a questionnaire. They reported twice, the first time 24 hours after the disaster and the second time 2 1/2 years later.
R – They found that individuals accounts had changed considerably. But when Neisser interviewed the individuals, they all felt very confident that this memory was just like yesterday
C – Confidence in no way correlates with accuracy of a memory.
