Flashbulb Memory Research Paper

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.

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.

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).

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

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

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

On September 11th, 2001, the worst terror attack on US soil took place. 19 people associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda took 4 airplanes and carried out suicide to kill people in the United States. Two of the planes hit the World Trade Center, another plan hit the pentagon just outside Washington, D.C, and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. These attacks caused massive destruction, forcing the U.S to combat terrorism and “defining the presidency of George W. Bush” (History). 9/11 is one of the most tragic events in the history of America, minute by minute people feared and this fear brought the country together in a way that it never did

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.

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.

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.

1. What is the gist (summary) of the reading? This chapter was about “flashbulb memory.” Flashbulb memories are memories of traumatic or dramatic events in great detail.

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

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.

Memory facilitates necessary functions in daily life activities, but it is not a perfect mechanism in operation. Goldstein (2011) states that memory is, “…the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present” (p.116). There are many adaptive functions within the complexities of the human memory system and the interlinked constructs between each function leave room for doubt in the accuracy of recollection. Study of the human mind has opened avenues of discovery on the inner workings of our brains and the resulting knowledge suggests that humans are prone to creating false memories and even remembering things that never actually happened. A great deal of information has been written explaining the nature of memory errors and within the following pages a real-life case offers a glimpse into how recall distortions and memory errors can wield unpleasant consequences. Memory errors can be avoided with a significant effort, but the truth remains that no one is perfect and memories are subject to individual bias.

Brown and Kulik discovered that these flash bulb memories were consistent over time. They did research on the death of Princess Diana and found that many people could remember a lot more than usual such as what time it was, who was with them etc. Such emotional events as September the 11th are very large scale and so many people will have flashbulb memories of the event making it easy to do a study and find proof of flashbulb memories. There is also evidence for forgetting as a result of repression. The main sort of evidence for repressed memories is a victim of crime. Many people who have been a victim of a crime can remember very little of it because emotion actually caused the memory to be repressed and forgotten. Freud helped to prove that people have repressed memories by using hypnosis that caused people to bring forgotten memories to light.