Examine how one theory of emotion may affect one cognitive process

Throughout our lives, we definitely have gone through a lot of experiences and made memories. Some of the memories are easily forgotten, while some others are remembered distinctively, vividly and can be recollected confidently. This is called the flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory is like a very clear picture of a particularly impactful event which had caused one to be affected emotionally. For example, I remember this performance that my school choir was performing. It was during Christmas season and we decided to spray bubble foam to portray fake snow. However, the plan backfired when the wind blew at our direction and all the foam flew back to us. This was remembered very clearly because I was embarrassed and had experienced something so

A flashbulb memory is a detailed snapshot of an event which evoked feelings of shock or surprise or were otherwise emotionally arousing (Brown and Kulik, 1977). Events which have negative emotions attached to them seem to be processed in a detail-attentive and conservative manner (Bless et al., 1996; Storbeck & Clore, 2005; Bohn and Bernsten, 2007). The age of a witness also seems to influence the formation of flashbulb memories. In a study by Cohen, Conway and Maylor (1993) most of the younger participants experienced flashbulb memory compared to less than half the older participants. They concluded that the main factor which influenced the formation of flashbulb memories for older participants was rehearsal of the events whereas in younger

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

False memories have been studied science the early 1990’s because they have become controversial topic. In the beginning they was no thought that your memory would be unfaithful and that if you had a memory that you “recovered” it had to be true because your memory couldn’t fail you. Could it? Well one woman’s disbelief caused her, Susan Clancy, who was a Harvard University graduate student at the time decided that while everyone else was arguing over the accuracy of recovered memories, she would create a study on them (Grierson 1). Clancy first started out by interviewing her subjects that said to have recovered memories of abuse after they had gone through therapy. The stories were horrifying but she was brought up to believe that what they were telling her was true. But, soon after she found herself wondering if they had even really went through these events that they “recovered”. When she spoke out against the recovered memory patients saying that they couldn’t of forgotten such a traumatic memory and that they had created a false memory by going to the therapy the hate mail started coming in (Grierson 3). Throughout this time many other scientists started to do more and more research on false memories and most of the studies have concluded with the same information. “The false memory researchers point to other research showing that traumatic events are normally remembered all too well. They argue that

Affect influences many areas of cognition and has a large impact on memory (Robinson, Watkins, & Harmon-Jones, 2013; Packard, Cahill, & McGaugh, 1994). It has been shown that extreme emotional stress can impair memory, while moderate levels of emotional stress can improve learning and memory (Packard et al., 1994). In humans, emotional content is remembered better than non-emotional content and is richer in details (Choi, Kensinger, & Rajaram, 2013). However, it is not totally clear how emotion influences false memories. Past research has examined the effect of emotion on false memories and has reported mixed findings where emotional intensity has increased and decreased false memory (Choi et al., 2013). Storbeck and Clore (2005) found definite results showing that negative emotional affect reduces false memories in adults. The goal of this research is to investigate how positive and negative affective states influence false memory in children and the effect of emotional regulation strategies on memory formation.

In the article You Have No Idea What Happened by Maria Konnikorva there is a quote near the end of the reading that really sums up human memory. Lila Davachi, a N.Y.U. neuroscientist who performed an experiment on emotional memories said that “the goal of memory isn’t to keep the details. It’s to be able to generalize from what you know so that you are more confident in acting on it.” This experiment was to test people’s memory after getting an electric shock to images. The results showed that people’s memory of the images tied with the shocks were enhanced as well as similar images from a test before without any shocks. Davachi was not just referring exclusively of the people that participated in the experiment, but to humankind as a whole.

Four hypotheses were given in this experiment. Results from each were consistent with its hypotheses. 1) The recovered memory group attained higher scores on the false recall and false recognition test than the control. These results are consistent with the only other experiment that measures memory distortion. This previous study dealt with memory distortion of victims of childhood sexual abuse (Clancy et al., 2000). People who are more prone to exhibit false recall and false recognition in the laboratory are more likely to do the same in real life. 2) Repressed memory and recovered memory participants exhibited more false recall and false recognition than the control group. 3) The recovered memory did score higher than any group in both false recall and false recognition.

The first study had resulted in the opposite of what l would assume would only support the theory of false memories being instilled into subjects. In addition, I also noticed how the wording of certain questions, may have had an influence on whether or not subjects recalled events that never happened. It was only when participants were being told to recall certain events, rather than being asked, that they were allowed room to expand their imagination, thus going as far as to vividly describe an event that never occurred. The second study divided the theory of the fabrication of memories, and suggested that some people may be immune to believing false memories. What l found to be interesting about the second study, was that researchers divided their subjects into two groups, with one of their groups being individuals with a highly superior autobiographical memory - yet, investigators were still able to

Flashbulb memories are, by definition, the memory of emotionally significant events that people often recall with more accuracy and vivid imagery than everyday life. As such, flashbulb memories can be positive or negative. Flashbulb memories are a type of Autobiographical memory: a special form of episodic memory, consisting of a person's recollections of his or her life experiences. The controversy as to whether flashbulb memories are as accurate as the owner of the memory believes it to be is still under debate. Because of the unique way these memories form, the memories are indeed more accurate than a ordinary memory. The emotion and rehearsal of flashbulb memories are the building tools to make the memory so durable. However, studies show

At one time, memory researchers believed that human memory worked like a video recorder. All one had to do was to find the right tape, play it back, and relive the memories precisely as they were originally experienced. However, subsequent research showed that this model was very inaccurate. Rather, most memories are simply forgotten and cannot be recalled. Few people have real memories of events that occurred before their 3rd birthday. For those memories that are actually remembered, the mind stores only elements of the actual events and reconstruct full memories later when the memories are recalled. The act of recalling memories can change them so that at the time of the next recall, they are somewhat modified.

The two main emotional factors that influence memory and forgetting are flashbulb and repression. A flashbulb memory is a memory that has a high emotional significance they are accurate and long lasting. It is almost a photographic memory of a particularly emotional event that is imprinted on your mind. For example an event such as September the 11th, people can remember things such as how they heard it happened, what clothes they were wearing and who they were with very clearly. This is because it was such a sudden emotional impact when they heard it that it got imprinted in their memory. Repression is an emotional factor in forgetting. It is that we forget because we have great anxiety about certain memories. This is because certain

Emotions usually ‘attach’ to memories, whether it was great pride in an achievement, or an intense fear while getting out of your comfort zone. This is why most memories from when you were growing up involve such feelings, and why you tend to remember certain memories depending on your mood. The feelings you experience in an incident can really make or break whether or not you actually remember it. Donna Addis of the University of Auckland has conducted studies where her and her team show that depressed individuals have trouble remembering episodic memories that contain a lot of emotions. She has also noticed that the part of the brain that helps you remember things is also the part of the brain that helps you build your future, and imagine

Some of our memories may be based, not on the experience of living an event, but external sources such as family stories, pictures or movies. You can create reports on an experimental basis, with appropriate controls, choosing an event with certain characteristics (that is unique, flashy and easy to discriminate) and suggest different subjects that event happened to them. An assessment of their subsequent reports memory, security, and the ability to compare them with other real memories of similar characteristics, the same subjects, can lead to stronger conclusions about the creation of false memories. Several research groups have followed this methodological way and have employed various events that met the above requirements. The basic methodology

A study that contradicts their theory was conducted by Neisser & Harsch in 1992. They wanted to explore the accuracy of flashbulb memory and so they gave out a questionnaire to 106 participants the day after the ‘Challenger Space Shuttle’ Explosion. Three years later, they sent out the exact same questionnaire to the same group of participants and compared the answers to the original. The results displayed that the participant’s’ memories faded from the time they took the questionnaire to the time they took it three years later. Even though such errors were evident, the participants remained very confident about the accuracy of their memory. Neisser and Harsch concluded that flashbulb memories are not as vivid and accurate as previously thought.

Recollections of vivid autobiographical episodic memories formed when an individual experiences intense emotions, generating from a surprising public event defines Flashbulb memories (FBMs). Permanent and consistent remembrances processed cognitively and stored as explicit recollections in long term memory are additional features of FBMs (Goldstein, 2014). Brown & Kulik (1977) first proposed this phenomenon and argued FBMs are resistant to change like photographs. The ongoing debate over the process of cognition in relation to storing and recalling FBMs led numerous researchers to advance their understanding of the mental processing of FBMs and to evaluate the impact emotions have on memories. This paper discusses the pioneer investigation and findings from Brown & Kulik’s 1977. It further explores debates opposing their unique theory of FBMs and the apparent inadequacies of their conclusions. Additionally, this paper examines plausible hypotheses from researchers for the formation of FBMs like rehearsal of events and the inconsistencies of FBMs, their distortions and the decay FBMs experience over time. It then evaluates a contemporary study on FBMs and the necessity for future studies to develop a method to measure FBMs. This is imperative in order to gain a deeper understanding of the influences emotions have on shaping, processing and storing FBMs cognitively and consequently how it impacts on our daily lives.