Flashbulb Memory Analysis

A couple of weeks ago Jim remembered and explained a vivid, flashbulb memory from his childhood of the day he had found out his parents had won the lottery. He remembered where he sat in the house and the board game he played with his siblings when they found out his parents won. Jim also said the score of the game. Jim found out of recent that everything he was recalling of that day was wrong. Jim had an inaccurate memory of that day. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and others have explained that memory constantly changes. Humans are constantly revising and updating their memories. People do not even know they are doing this and information they have received after the event has happened ends up changing what they recall. Jim probably spoke about that
day with his siblings and his parents. From that point, what they were saying to Jim he took that information and changed it to what they talked about even if it was wrong or right. Flashbulb memories are seemed to be vivid and exact because of the emotion that the person has felt during the event. The emotional reaction that is felt stimulates the hormones then release it to form long term memories. Long term memory is permanently storing the information then managing it to retrieve the information at a later time. During flashbulb memory the memory can decay and over time altercations of other kinds of memories can occur. Jims memory could have changed because the way the memory was formed and how his memory was retrieved. Jim probably had the idea that when he is recalling the day his parents won the lottery he was recalling the memory like it was an instant replay. As all of the new memories formed later from that day his old memory could have become lost but it is likely for the memory to have been altered. The vivid flashbulb memory is never that accurate and after Jim recalling the memory from his childhood the more inaccurate his recollection can be. Constructive processing is when a memory is revised, altered, or gets influenced by new material. This is what happened to Jim.
The activity that takes place in memory formation has gone through many studies. The study shows that memory does not just alter one physical change but goes through many. The change that takes place goes through changes in receptor sites and the changes that occur in the sensitivity synapse through repetitive stimulation. Then, changes that happen in the dendrite and within the proteins with the neurons.