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Flashbulb memory examples
Flashbulb memory examples
Flashbulb memory examples
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Jim, from the scenario above, had a flashbulb memory from his childhood about the day his parents won the lottery, or he though he did. A flash bulb memory can be defined as memories people can remember vividly, even down to the details on a specific action that someone was doing. On this day Jim realized that the flashbulbs memory he experienced was actually wrong, but this situation can happen to a lot of people. Memories are very complex and there are multiple factors that could lead Jim to recalling his memory incorrectly. The first factor that could have caused Jim to recall his memory incorrectly is the decay theory. The decay theory means that a memory fades out, because of the passage of time. Jim was a child at the time of this memory,
Memories can be altered based on acquisition, storage, and retrieval. Acquisition is what we notice or perceive based on what we are paying attention to. Storage is what information gets stored into one’s memory. Retrieval correlates with the false memory syndrome, which is recalling a previous traumatic experience that is false but believed to be true. The false memory syndrome is often noticed during police interrogations and leads to coerced confessions, which is when the individual being interrogated is essentially pressured to confess.
Our memory is made up of many different types of memories; episodic, semantic, and implicit. Episodic memory is the remembrance of a certain event. An example of this
The special mechanism approach to flashlight memories was also introduced by R. Brown & Kulik, it stipulates that flashbulb memories are virtually literal representations of the what, how, and where of the original event (Schwartz, 2013). This mechanism works by encoding what happened in great detail. As a result, the flashbulb memory will be very strong and will remain in the memory (Schwartz, 2013). Strong emotions are the core of special mechanisms. To further explain, distinctiveness may be correlated with the critical triggering condition, experiences that produce strong emotional reactions may tend to be more distinctive than experiences that do not (Winograd & Nei...
The first one was that kids lack the machinery for this. A lot of things have to be put to a motion for a memory to be created in the brain. Another one is that kids lack any kind narrative or vocab to describe an event. Kids also go through shredding or neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is the process of making new neurons and this can disrupt circuits in the brain that make them forget things. Also, it is easy for kids to get their memories mixed up with other people’s memories if it’s similar to an existing memory. The author gives a good example of this situation. “For instance, you meet someone and remember their name, but later meet a second person with a similar name, and become confused about the name of the first person.” As the kids grow up their memory does get better and it becomes less likely for their memory to succumb to these things. Something the author only slightly mentions is her interview with another psychologist named Patricia Bauer. She describes memory like making Jell-O. You take the mixture of Jell-O; pour it into a mold and put it in the refrigerator. The thing about the mold is that it has a hole and all you can hope that it solidifies in the mold before too much of it leaks
Have you ever experienced an event that was so significant to you that you felt as if your memory was taking a photograph, keeping the memory implanted in your brain for the rest of your life? This is a prime example of flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory is a term that pertains to a person’s memory of hearing about extremely shocking events (Goldstein, 2011, p. 209). Flashbulb memory is not the memory for the event itself, but it’s the memory of how the person heard about the specific event (Goldstein, 2011, p. 209). This means that a flashbulb memory includes where you were and what you were doing when you found out about a tragic event (Goldstein, 2011, p. 209). Some key attributes of flashbulb memories are that they are both remembered for long periods of time and are exceedingly vivid (Goldstein, 2011, p. 209). A great way to describe flashbulb memories is to compare them to a photo that never fades, proving how relevant these memories are to those who have them (Goldstein, 2011, p. 209).
Steffens, M., & Mecklenbräuker, S. (2007). False memories: Phenomena, theories, and implications. Zeitschrift Für Psychologie/Journal Of Psychology, 215(1), 12-24. doi:10.1027/0044-3409.215.1.12
Inaccurate memories can happen to anyone even when they believe it truly happened. One might think that there is only one type of memory but that it not the case. When Jim thinks that he remembers something but actually does not, the memory he thinks he remembers would be categorized under flashbulb memories. Usually, it is a flashbulb memory of a childhood experience. These memories are actually very similar to regular memories.
The article How to Tell If a Particular Memory Is True or False by Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus, addresses the various techniques used by cognitive scientists and other researchers in hopes of distinguishing true from false memories. For this article Loftus and Bernstein, memory researchers, chose to discuss the different methods currently used, rather than trying to find new ways to tell if a particular memory is true or false. Their findings in these three different approaches are very interesting, and leads us to think critically of the veracity of true and false memories.
Law (2011) cited James McGaugh, a memory expert who found out the closer you are to the World Trade Center, the more likely you remember the memory based on your emotions. Talarico and Rubin (2003) examined the consistency of a person’s flashbulb memory on 9/11 and everyday memories determining if there is a difference form the first week to the 32nd week. It is likely for someone to have a vivid memory of something that released strong emotions than your everyday memories. A person cannot remember what they did the day before or after September 11, but they remember certain aspects of the traumatic event. Flashbulb memory is accurate when there is something that brings out negative emotions, and something that can have an effect on people’s lives (Talarico and Rubin, 2003). During the 9/11 attack thousands of people were killed whether it was family, friends or stranger it released a lot of emotions for the people living in New York. In Talarico and Rubin (2003) study, they recruited Duke students the day after the September 11, 2001 attack, and were asked to answered open-ended question about the emotional event. Consistency is measured on how much memory is accurate from the beginning to the end of the study. Emotion intensity was measured from not at all to extremely. Law (2011) mentions that the more you tell the story, chance it is engraved in your memories as the truth, which is rehearsed and reconstructed
In a child younger than three or four have a harder time remembering things when they get older. Some researchers have even said that young children don't form memories, but that is false. However, their memories may fade once they get older or older memories are sometimes replaced with newer memories. Some may not even remember simple things such as their third or fourth birthdays. Also, other researchers think that this has to do with cognitive and language skills. According to Psychology Professor Carole Peterson: “this is not the case. Very young children can still recall past events.” Peterson also said “As young children get older their first memories tend to get later and later, but around the age of ten their memories crystallize.” Researchers have even done tests to check the memories of children. What they did was asked 140 kids in the age range of 4-13 to describe their earliest memories, then they would ask them two years later. They had to estimate the age they were at the time and parents were to confirm it. By doing this they found out that ages 4-7 showed very little overlap between the memories they called first and remembered them two years later. Peterson said “Even when we repeated what they told us two years before, many of the younger children would tell us it didn't happen to them.” ⅓ of the children ages 10-13 described the same earliest memory during their second interview. More than half of the memories were recalled the same at
Similar studies were done to a different set of college students and they tended to have the same results. After giving as much detail about each memory, the students were interviewed about what they may have written done about what they had remembered. During the last part of the experiment, each of the students were debriefed and asked to guess which memory they believed was false.
False Memories are essentially, unintentional human errors, or a state of none-factual creativeness; which results in persons having declared memories of events and situations that did not occur in the actuality of their own lifespan reality history. If they were not unintentional errors they would be deception, which has the nature of a different purpose, morality and legality. False memories have no authenticity, realness or legitimacy, in the subject’s actual life. However they may not be complete false memories: more likely to be a combination of subjugation of previous memory cue’s; or imaginative inventive production, activated and initiated by an origination of external scenario additive as a prompt, indicator or sign, which fuses into memory recall. Therefore ‘False Memories’ are a genuine but inaccurate remembering of experimental data or recall of an genuine occurrences; both of which have rudiments of accuracy and inaccuracy in their transitive attention, giving most ‘False Memories’ partiality.
In the film, “The Man with the 7-Second Memory”, we are introduced to Clive Wearing who suffers from a rare and very severe form of amnesia.
The findings of this research would reinforce findings of previous research specifically in relation to the robustness of false memories. The experiment undertaken by students will also be helpful to the study of false memories specifically to test the reproducibility of this type of experiment.
According to Sternberg (1999), memory is the extraction of past experiences for information to be used in the present. The retrieval of memory is essential in every aspect of daily life, whether it is for academics, work or social purposes. However, many often take memory for granted and assume that it can be relied on because of how realistic it appears in the mind. This form of memory is also known as flashbulb memory. (Brown and Kulik, 1977). The question of whether our memory is reliably accurate has been shown to have implications in providing precise details of past events. (The British Psychological Association, 2011). In this essay, I would put forth arguments that human memory, in fact, is not completely reliable in providing accurate depictions of our past experiences. Evidence can be seen in the following two studies that support these arguments by examining episodic memory in humans. The first study is by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) who found that memory can be modified by suggestions. The second study is by Naveh-Benjamin and Craik (1995) who found that there is a predisposition for memory to decline with increasing age.