A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed,
exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece
of surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) news was heard. We
all have memories that feel as vivid and accurate as a snapshot, usually of
some shocking, dramatic event—the assassination of President Kennedy, the
explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the attacks of September 11, 2001,
the death of Elvis. People remember exactly where they were, what
they were doing, who they were with, what they saw or heard. But several clever
experiments have tested people’s memory immediately after a tragedy and again
several months or years later. The test subjects tend to be confident that
their memories are accurate and say the flashbulb memories are more vivid than
other memories.
Vivid they may be, but the memories decay over time just as
other memories do. People forget important details and add incorrect ones, with
no awareness that they’re recreating a muddled scene
in their minds rather than calling up a perfect, photographic reproduction.
Can flashbulb memories be improved? Although additional information about a
specific event can then be researched or learned, the extra information is
often lost in memory due to different encoding processes. A more recent study,
examining effects of the media on flashbulb memories for the 9/11 attacks,
shows that extra information may help retain vivid flashbulb memories. Although
the researchers found that memory for the event decreased over time for all
participants, looking at images had a profound effect on participants memory.
Those who said they saw images of the 9/11 attacks immediately retained much
more vivid images 6-months later than those who said they saw images hours
after they heard about the attacks. The latter participants failed to encode the
images with the original learning of the event. Thus, it may be the images
themselves that lead some of the participants to recall more details of the
event. Graphic images may make an individual associate more with the horror and
scale of a tragic event and hence produce a more elaborate encoding mechanism.
Furthermore, perhaps looking at images may help individuals retain vivid flashbulb memories months, and perhaps even years, after an event occurs.
Furthermore, perhaps looking at images may help individuals retain vivid flashbulb memories months, and perhaps even years, after an event occurs.
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