Brown & Kulik (1977) introduced the construct of flashbulb memories in an article in Cognition (vol 5(1), p73-99) and, as a prototypical example, they used a memory for an event relevant to today. The abstract to the article follows:
|Abstract |Flashbulb Memories are memories for the circumstances in which one |first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally |arousing) event. Hearing the news that President John Kennedy had |been shot is the prototype case. Almost everyone can remember, with |an almost perceptual clarity, where he was when he heard, what he was |doing at the time, who told him, what was the immediate aftermath, how |he felt about it, and also one or more totally idiosyncratic and often trivial |concomitants. The present paper reports a questionnaire inquiry into |the determinants of such memories by asking about other assassinations, |highly newsworthy events, and personally significant events. It is shown that |while the Kennedy assassination created an extraordinarily powerful and |widely shared flashbulb memory, it is not the only event that has created |such memories. The principal two determinants appear to be a high level |of surprise, a high level of consequentiality, or perhaps emotional arousal |(assessed by both rating scales and ethnic group membership). If these |two variables do not attain sufficiently high levels, no flashbulb memory |occurs. If they do attain high levels, they seem, most directly, to affect the |frequency of rehearsal, covert and overt, which, in turn, affects the degree |of elaboration in the narrative of the memory that can be elicited experimentally. |Parallels are made explicit between the behavioral theory and a less elaborated, |speculative neuro-physiological theory of which R. B. Livingston (1967) is the |proponent Finally, an argument is made that a permanent memory for incidental |concomitants of a surprising and consequential (in the sense of biologically |significant) event would have high selection value and so could account for |the evolution of an innate base for such a memory mechanism. http://tinyurl.com/ygvu6cc Of course, such an example today would be relevant to people over a certain age, probably 50 or older, and subsequent research has used other, more recent events as prototypical examples. And it would appear that the explanation of the phenomenon has also undergone changes as represented by the following abstract: |Personal Memories for Remote Historical Events: Accuracy and |Clarity of Flashbulb Memories Related to World War II. | |By Berntsen, Dorthe; Thomsen, Dorthe K. | |Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Vol 134(2), May 2005, |242-257. | |Abstract | |One hundred forty-five Danes between 72 and 89 years of age were |asked for their memories of their reception of the news of the Danish |occupation (April 1940) and liberation (May 1945) and for their most |negative and most positive personal memories from World War II. |Almost all reported memories for the invasion and liberation. Their |answers to factual questions (e.g., the weather) were corroborated |against objective records and compared with answers from a younger |control group. The older participants were far more accurate than what |could be predicted on the basis of results from test-retest studies using |short delays. The "permastore" metaphor (Bahrick, 1984) provides a |possible interpretation of this discrepancy. Participants with reported |ties to the resistance movement had more vivid, detailed, and accurate |memories than did participants without such ties. Ratings of surprise |and consequentiality were unrelated to the accuracy and clarity of the |memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) My own memory for when I heard about the Kennedy assasination is as follows: I was in the fourth grade in Catholic grade school and it was a sunny afternoon. The nun who was our teacher had been called away from class and we fidgeted, talked to each other, and fooled around until she came back. She had a very serious look on her face and she spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper. She told us that the president had been shot. I don't remember whether she said whether he had died or not. My own reaction was I didn't understand what this meant but I knew that it was not good. I don't remember much else from that afternoon nor do I remember whether I actually saw Oswald being shot on TV a couple of days later. I don't remember many details but I do remember the sadness and sense of loss that other displayed and which I eventually took on. It would take a while for me to figure out what this all meant. For the NY Times' account of that day, see: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1122.html#article Fans of the AMC channel's "Mad Men" should remember the episode on the Kennedy assasination (3rd series, episode 12 "The Grown Ups") and how varied the reactions were to the event. Matthew Weiner, the series creator, producer, and sometime writer/director, explains his thinking about the episode and why he decided to incorporate it into the storyline (by comparison, consider how fleeting the references were to 9/11 in many TV series that take place in NYC; I think that only Denis Leary's "Rescue Me" has made 9/11 a critical component of its storyline). See: http://www.tvguide.com/news/madmen-weiner-kennedy-1011734.aspx For those old enough to remember the Kennedy assasination, I recommend viewing the "Mad Men" episode (which may be available if your cable system has AMC on demand). One surprise that I had was the realization that several TV channels had covered the assasination but that I had only watched the CBS coverage which featured Walter Cronkite (indeed, many presentations of the Kennedy assasination provide Cronkite's reporting of Kennedy's death as "the" report of the event; for unknown reasons as a child we always watched the CBS news). As time goes on, I realize that there is less that I can remember about that event which is okay. I now appreciate its significance and know that my memory for it has been altered by watching subsequent programs and learning about the events of that day. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
