Emotion and Memory = Flashbulb Memory?

Brown & Kulik (1977)

                                       
The aim of the study was investigate whether dramatic or personally significant events can cause "flashbulb" memories. The procedure was that the psychologists assessed the memories of 80 American people for the circumstances in which they learned of public events. They demonstrated that flashbulb memory is more likely for unexpected and personally relevant shocking events. They concluded that dramatic events can cause physiological imprinting of a memory of the events. The weakness was the data was collected through questioner, so it couldn't verify the accuracy of memories reported. 

                      

     


Neisser & Harsch (1992)          
In 1992, they asked 106 participants to answer the questions about circumstances of the challenger space shuttle disaster. Thirty two months later, they asked the same question again to the participants, and compare the results with original one. The finding showed that memories were not accurate, it showed the memories had in fact dimmed. Of 220 facts from the original questionnaire, 150 were wrong. They concluded that the Flashbulb memories are not reliable. 

  




Talarico & Rubin (2003)
This study is about that on September 12, they gave 52 students a questionnaire about their memory of September 11, and an ordinary event of their choosing from the preceding few days. They divided into three groups, and each group return for follow-up questionnaire session after different amount of time: 7days, 42days, and 224days. They were asked the same questions about their memories about both ordinary event and flashbulb memory. They found out that people have strong memories of September 11 than any other day. Therefore, they concluded that flashbulb memories are just like with other memories.