Flashbulb Memory Research Paper
Two weeks ago Jim began to recount a vivid, flashbulb memory from his childhood of the day he found out that his parents won the lottery. He describes the exact place he was sitting, the board game he was playing, and even the people he was with at the time. Recently, Jim discovered that he was wrong about his recall of that very day. I plan to explain why Jim had such an inaccurate memory of this experience by defining a flashbulb memory and describing the factors that play when false memories occur.
A flashbulb memory is defined as an emotional memory that is extraordinarily vivid and detailed, according to the textbook. It was argued by Roger Brown and James Kulik, in 1977, that flashbulb memories don't decay, or fade from memory over
time, like ordinary memories, they operate more like video cameras or DVDs, capturing the moment. However, Ulric Neisser and Nicole Harsch, in 1992, disagreed with their views on flashbulb memories. They conducted a study where they decided to study college students recollection of the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, in 1986. Throughout the study, the students' stories changed dramatically over time, from the initial recollection to their later recollection. When students were presented with their written recollections several years earlier, they couldn't believe what they wrote. From that study, Neisser and Harsch came up with the term phantom flashbulb memory, meaning that many flashbulb memories are false. It also indicated that flashbulb memories change over time, like all memories, probably due to factors such as decay and interference, or the loss of information from memory because of competition from additional incoming information.
There are many explanations of how Jim's memory was inaccurate and could have changed over time. One of them being retrograde amnesia, which is the loss of memories from our past. Jim states that this memory of his comes from his childhood, meaning it may have happened some time ago. It is certainly easy to forget how a specific event happened after many years. The next possible explanation could be infantile amnesia, meaning the inability of adults to remember personal experiences that took place before an early age. Depending on the age Jim was when he believed this event happened, such as ages 2 to 5, according to scientific evidence, Jim would not be able to encode or store memories of his experience in a meaningful fashion. Lastly, Jim may have been dealing with source monitoring confusion, or the lack of origin of a memory. Jim may have been seeking cues to encode his memory of his parents winning the lottery to come up with his flashbulb memory. Jim probably used source monitoring incorrectly by confusing his fantasies with his memories. When that sort of thing happens, it is easy for false memories to occur.
A flashbulb memory is defined as an emotional memory that is extraordinarily vivid and detailed, according to the textbook. It was argued by Roger Brown and James Kulik, in 1977, that flashbulb memories don't decay, or fade from memory over
time, like ordinary memories, they operate more like video cameras or DVDs, capturing the moment. However, Ulric Neisser and Nicole Harsch, in 1992, disagreed with their views on flashbulb memories. They conducted a study where they decided to study college students recollection of the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, in 1986. Throughout the study, the students' stories changed dramatically over time, from the initial recollection to their later recollection. When students were presented with their written recollections several years earlier, they couldn't believe what they wrote. From that study, Neisser and Harsch came up with the term phantom flashbulb memory, meaning that many flashbulb memories are false. It also indicated that flashbulb memories change over time, like all memories, probably due to factors such as decay and interference, or the loss of information from memory because of competition from additional incoming information.
There are many explanations of how Jim's memory was inaccurate and could have changed over time. One of them being retrograde amnesia, which is the loss of memories from our past. Jim states that this memory of his comes from his childhood, meaning it may have happened some time ago. It is certainly easy to forget how a specific event happened after many years. The next possible explanation could be infantile amnesia, meaning the inability of adults to remember personal experiences that took place before an early age. Depending on the age Jim was when he believed this event happened, such as ages 2 to 5, according to scientific evidence, Jim would not be able to encode or store memories of his experience in a meaningful fashion. Lastly, Jim may have been dealing with source monitoring confusion, or the lack of origin of a memory. Jim may have been seeking cues to encode his memory of his parents winning the lottery to come up with his flashbulb memory. Jim probably used source monitoring incorrectly by confusing his fantasies with his memories. When that sort of thing happens, it is easy for false memories to occur.