Everyday Memory_ Three

Applied Cognitive Psychology: Everyday Memory Lecture 3 - Carla van Harmelen

The Roadmap

  • Lecture 1: Real Life versus Laboratory
    • Ecological Validity
  • Lecture 2:
    • Memory Across a Life Diary Studies and Retrieval Cues
    • Memory for Life Periods
  • Lecture 3: Flashbulb Memories
  • Lecture 4: Revision

Flashbulb Memories (FBM)

  • Definition:

    • Flashbulb Memory (FBM): A vivid memory for the trivial, personal details surrounding a shocking event.
    • Quote: “Capacity of an important (and shocking) event to illuminate trivial aspects of the observers’ current activities and surroundings.” (Groome, Textbook)

  • Historical Context:

    • Brown and Kulik (1977):
    • Observed the phenomenon of FBMs and conducted the first modern empirical study on the topic.
    • They hypothesized that FBMs are remarkably accurate and immune to normal forgetting processes.

  • Common Examples:

    • Assassinations
    • Natural disasters
    • Terrorist attacks

  • Engagement Exercise:

    • Reflect on personal experiences of shocking events; consider where you were and what you were doing during those events.

Importance of Studying FBMs

  • Interest to Psychologists/Researchers:
    • FBM processes may also underlie intrusive memories in various disorders, such as:
    • PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
    • Phobias
    • Depression
    • FBMs are associated with extremely distressing memories of horrific experiences, although not always.
    • They are thought to be persistent, long-lasting, and intense, often difficult to keep out of consciousness.

FBM Characteristics and Processes: Brown & Kulik (1977)

  • Suggested that a special memory process may be involved in forming FBMs.
  • Initial hypothesis: FBMs are a permanent, truthful (not necessarily complete) memory record, resulting from a unique memory process involving automatic encoding.
  • Extreme emotion leads to a near photographic record of the event and its physical context.
  • Characteristics of FBMs:
    • Remarkably accurate.
    • Immune to normal forgetting processes.
    • Common when the individual remembering has been affected by the event.
    • This process may have evolved as a survival advantage.

FBM Controversy

  • Key Questions:
    • Are FBMs different from just vivid Autobiographical Memories (AMs)?
    • Do FBMs have unique characteristics that AMs do not?
    • Is a distinct process involved in producing FBMs compared to AMs?

FBM Characteristics: Talarico and Rubin (2018)

  • Review of Research:
    • Conducted 40 years after the discovery of FBMs.
    • Characteristics comparison between FBMs and AMs:
    • Longevity: FBMs are long-lasting but still subject to forgetting; not more permanent than noteworthy AMs.
    • Accuracy: FBMs can have critical inaccuracies, but many accurate details are present.
    • Consistency: Not significantly more consistent than everyday AMs.
    • Vividness: FBMs are generally more vivid than some ordinary AMs; however, AMs with high emotional intensity are also quite vivid.
    • Confidence: Participants consistently report enhanced confidence in the accuracy of FBMs.

Special Conditions and Characteristics for FBMs

  • Factors Influencing FBM Formation (Talarico and Rubin, 2018):
    • Consequentiality: Seems irrelevant to FBM formation.
    • Distinctiveness: Correlation with the formation and vividness of FBMs.
    • Emotional Affect: Positive interpretations of an event correspond to increased accuracy, vividness, and rehearsal of FBMs compared to negative interpretations, although it is understudied.

Individual Processing Characteristics for FBMs

  • Research Findings (Talarico and Rubin, 2018):
    • Significance: Personal significance positively correlates with FBM formation, enhancing accuracy, consistency, and vividness; however, unrelated to confidence.
    • Surprise: Associated with greater initial recall and later consistency, particularly when related to social identity.
    • Emotional Intensity: Supports the emotional intensity's role in FBM formation, though AMs also share this characteristic.
    • Rehearsal: Some studies find a correlation with the formation of FBMs.

Encoding and Storage of FBMs

  • Neisser and Harsch (1992) Challenger Study:
    • Tested participants one day after the disaster, then again three years later.
    • Findings: About 50% of details were inconsistent in the three-year retest.
    • Conclusion: FBMs suffer from errors and forgetting over long delays, similar to other memories.

Fallibility of FBMs

  • Conway et al. (1994):
    • Argued that the noted fallibility of FBMs is due to a lack of interest in the event.
    • Suggested that FBMs may only arise for events with personal significance or consequence.
    • Follow-up research (Talarico & Rubin, 2018) confirms a link between personal significance and FBM formation, but causal links to consequentiality are contested.
    • Conway (1995): FBMs consist of stable clusters of highly integrated sensory-perceptual details, accessed holistically, unlike AMs, which are dynamic reconstructions.

Alternative Explanations for FBMs

  • Neisser (1982):
    • Proposed no special process is involved; frequent retrieval