Flashbulb memory theory
Highly detailed, vivid 'snapshots' of surprising and emotionally arousing events
Proposed by Brown and Kulik
Suggests a special biological mechanism is triggered, leading to permanent memory storage
Evaluation:
(+) Biological supports the role of emotion in memory
(+) Highlights the different types of memory processing
(-) Confidence doesn't equal accuracy
(-) Difficult to measure personal relevance, surprise and rehearsal accurately
(-) Cultural differences challenge the universality of the theory
(-) Impossible to verify memory accuracy
(-) No direct way to measure emotional state at the time of encoding
