Flashbulb Memory Research Paper

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.

I was only five when 9/11 happened so I do not remember much about that day. But, there have been times in my life that I remember pretty well. For example, when my mom had a stroke last year. I remember where I was and the day that my dad called me to tell me. Even only a couple months later I have forgot some

September 11th, 2001 will be a day that Americans remember for many years to come. A tragedy that killed nearly 3000 innocent people. Fifteen years have passed since that infamous day but it will live on through history forever. Although it will never be forgotten, people tend to read up on the events every year or two, especially around the time it happened. As a way to remember or mourn and gain more knowledge on the attacks, people will often read articles or look at photographs of the event. The article “America marks 15-year anniversary of 9/11 Attacks” and Thomas E. Franklins photograph taken on the day of the attacks serve as a way for people to remember and get that information in their own separate ways.

September 11, 2001 (herein referred to as 9/11) was a day in American history, which will be remembered as the most horrific attack on American soil. This attack, carried out by nineteen Islamic extremists, was associated with al-Qaeda, and involved the hijacking of four airplanes. Two of those airplanes were hijacked and flown directly into the World Trade Center in New York City, New York. The third plane’s target was the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the fourth plane was brought down in Pennsylvania where it is believed the passengers aboard fought the hijackers. This horrific day in history cost over 3,000 people their lives, and was labeled the worst attack on American soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.

September 11th, 2001 is now a date discussed in history lessons. While the post-9/11 generations may not have witnessed the changes of this tragic event, which rapidly filled every crevice of US society, they have an entire generation ready to narrate what they witnessed on and after that day. The expeditious reaction made a permanent mark on American culture.

Most people from one time to another have had a memorable event within their lifetime. One memorable event that spread across the United States and affected many people is what is known as 9/11. This event affected many innocent lives, those that survived as well as those that did not. September 11th marks in history as a horrifying even that now affects people’s societal, political, and personal decisions. It is marked down as a day no U.S. citizen would forget.

Throughout the history of the United States’ judicial system, eyewitness testimonies — an account from a witness of a crime or an accident that involves the witness recounting their firsthand experience of the incident to a court — have been used as conclusive evidence to prove a defendant guilty. It is thought that although memory can be unclear at times, it is assumed memories of stressful or otherwise threatening events are well encoded into the brain, largely indelible, and therefore can be accurately recalled. This idea is based off of the psychological concept of flashbulb memories which are “sudden onsets of emotionally significant events or memories” (“Psychology Students”). However, recent psychological and neuroscientific research

One of the most controversial events ever to occur is still being talked about to this day. September 11th, 2001 will forever go down in history as one of the most tragic disasters to hit the United States of America. It was heartbreak for all of us to see those towers fall and thousands upon thousands of American lives destroyed. One might ask themselves; didn’t everything get explained a little too quickly? Why did everyone so quickly forget the details to this tragedy? The events of September 11th, 2001 are surely going to be remembered for its brutal truth and will always remind us of the hate that we as humans can create. The events of September 11th happened so fast that lots of details were overlooked but now, six years later one

Many people can look back and remember September 9th, 2001, like it was yesterday. This day will be forever remembered in America’s History. This is the day the world seemed as it stood still. On 9/11, America experienced a major terrorist attack, which hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Centers in New York City, crashed into the Pentagon in the District of Columbia, and had a plane crash into the fields of Pennsylvania.

Social Bonding Measurement. For oxytocin measurement, urine samples of twelve subjects will be collected in order to examine the changes in the hormonal level of social bonding before and after the testing phase. Morning void urine will be collected for measuring baseline hormones and for minimizing the effects of circadian rhythms. Urine samples will be collected noninvasively in the urine cage or with a plastic cup in the home cage. After awakening in the morning, subjects will be allowed to access the cage for urinating with a duration of 15 minutes. The urine cages will be rinsed carefully after each usage. Urine samples will be labeled for collecting oxytocin (Finkenwirth, van Schaik, Ziegler, & Burkart, 2015).

September 11, 2001, the start of terrorism in The United States, and the end of innocence in our lives. Some of us are lucky to never know the fright of that horrid day. For others though, the events that transpired on September 11 will live on forever in their memory.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, two planes hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists crashed into the symbol of military and capitalism; the World Trade Center (History.com). This attack killed approximately 3,000 people (History.com). One other plane crashed into the Pentagon and 125 people lost their lives in that attack (History.com). That day, referred to as 9/11, left a stain in the hearts and minds of many Americans. These attacks brought out the hero in a great deal of people, but many heroes died on that day, and those heroes will never be forgotten. Because of this tragic event, millions of American citizens were injured or have had to endure the lasting effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (History.com). This awful event is our hope for the future because it taught us we need to combat terrorism better and we are still fighting this battle today (History.com).

Memory does not work like a video camera, smoothly recording every detail. Instead, memory is more of a constructive process. We remember the details that we find most important and relevant. Due to the reconstructive nature of memory, the assimilation of old and new information has the ability to cause vulnerable memories to become distorted. This is also known as the misinformation effect (Loftus, 1997). It is not uncommon for individuals to fill in memory gaps with what they assume they must have experienced. We not only distort memories for events that we have observed, but, we may also have false memories for events that never occurred at all. False memories are “often created by combing actual memories with suggestions received from

Human memory is a peculiar thing and many people question the phenomenon of false memories. A false memory is the psychological phenomenon where a person recalls something that simply did not happen. Psychologists only know a limited amount about memory and how it works, there is plenty of information out there that is a mystery to us. The Mandela Effect is a type of memory glitch that has caused a lot buzz in recent years, it’s best referred to as an instance of collective misremembering. The name of the Mandela Effect came from Fiona Broome, who referred to herself as a “paranormal consultant.” She shared on her blog about how she noticed that she wrote about a false memory - that “Nelson Mandela, South African human rights activist and

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.