Category: Flashbulb Memory

The TED talk is about how memories are not reliable, begin with a raping case. Because the false memory of the victim. It destroyed the future of an innocent man. Our memory is not like a recording machine. The information in our memory can be changed (Loftus, 2013). Everyone including our self can go inside and change the memory. Elizabeth also talked about how memory experiments can lead to ethical problems. For example, when soldiers were being arrested as prisoners, we pretend to be the interrogator and so them questions in an aggressive and irritating way. It will cause false memories for the soldiers and they committed the wrong interrogator. She claimed the outcome outweighed the process. Even though it might cause problems for the soldier after the experiment. But the result showed the importance of learning how suggestive information or misinformation changes our memory, it would save people like Titus who would have a normal happy life if it wouldn’t be false memory.

Dr. Loftus provides an idea of memories can be changed and is sometimes not reliable. She showed an example of different ways of asking questions would lead to different answers. Ask “How fast were the car going to smash/hit into each other?”, when we were using smash, people would answer a faster speed wish broken windows. It is surprising that the picture of the accident was already given, and the window was fine. We can plant false memories in other people as well. The example she gave was telling a person that he was lost in a shopping mall when he was a kid. They also tried to plant more stressful memory such as nearly drown when he was child. Ass the experiment succeeded. The result clearly showed ways of changing memory, not only the person himself but also other people can change the memory.

Episodic memory is personal memory (Cacippo and Freberg, 331). And false memory is all about personal experience. The ways we think it happened in our life. It is specific information about events objects and people with timelines. The source of information can result from single personal experience. The focus of the memory is based on subjective experience. Whenever any of the events, places, people or timeline changes it can tell a totally different story. Like the Titus story, the time and place did not change, but the important round of people changed, the victim had a false memory about the part of people but with the same events and place. Which caused terrible results for the innocents. Flashbulb Memory showed “How stress and negative emotion-release of hormones and by patterns of brain activity that can wither enhance or impair memory processing” (342). The case is often stressful and painful for the victim to process their memory, and when the memory is uncertain, they can easily affect by external factors such as ways of asking the victim and testimony of the witness. However, “when the ones of witness claim the criminal with confident, detail or a strong emotion does not make imagination reality” (Loftus, 2013). But it often confuses the victim and causes false memory, which lead from “I think that the one” to “I am positive sure that is the one”. In the section of forgetting, motivated forgetting explains. Within extreme circumstances, “forgetting protects against threatening information”. And confabulation related to the confusion of reality and imagined events. (Cacippo and Freberg, 347). Connecting with flashbulb memory and the whole process, it makes sense why it is possible for false memory to occur. When the victim experiences the case in a stressful and harmful situation, her body would produce hormones that affect her memory processing, and for the result, the victim’s body would forget or change of that part of memory for protection. This will result in a false memory and leads to terrible result like the Titus case.

The most interesting and controversial point I find is the ethical and offense problem of experimental among false memories. From one example, that putting U.S. military into a stressful event such as what will happen if they were captured as prisoners during war. It involved “aggressive, hostile, physically abusive fashion” (Loftus, 2013). Then they will identify the person in the interrogation with suggested information were given. Also, for other cases where they plant false memories inside a person to the outcomes. All these scientific experiments lead to ethical and offense problems. Therapist felt they were being attacked and patient feel they were influenced by these problems. I agree with Elizabeth, the study of false memory is preventing destroying innocent people’s lives, the outcome outweighs the cost.

Cultural dimensions are a multitude of indicators that were studied and consequently created by Geert Hofstede, an IBM employee. He traveled the world and surveyed other IBM employees. His job required him to study how a multinational organization and how employees worked together. This study was crucial to IBM as workplace misunderstandings could affect the finances of a multinational corporation. The idea of cultural dimensions refers to the values to which national culture is based on. One such dimension in the larger body of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is the idea of individualism and collectivism in different cultures. Individualism is the focus on one’s ambitions and goals whilst, in contrast, collectivism focuses on the greater good of a group and places the group’s needs first.

Individualistic cultures are more focused on Northern America and West Europe. Collectivistic cultures are most present in East Asia and China, this is due to the group’s needs being ingrained into Asian culture. Throughout history, rice paddies were a main part of the life of Asian farmers, they had to make sure every variable was controlled because if it was not, the yield would be substantially lower. This developed a sense of groups within a culture that differs from Western ideals, the farmers in Asia did not want to feel good, they strived for constant improvement in their methods, a choice that is reflected in the cultures of most Southeast Asian countries which tend to be more collectivist than individualistic.

Kullkofsky et al wanted to study the role of culture, and if it played a role in flashbulb memories. This study aimed to solidify the claim that individualism and collectivism can influence cognition, such as memory. They also wanted to study the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures in how much flashbulb memories they could recall accurately. The sample group was made of 274 adults from China, Turkey, Germany, the UK, and the USA, all of the adults were considered to be “middle-class”. The participants were given 5 minutes to recall a public event that had to have happened at least a year ago. The examiner had the questions translated by interpreters to increase the strength of the test, avoid possible confusion, and increase the chances of an accurate recall by the participants. The questions were based on how the person felt about the event, and their surroundings when the event took place. Kullkofsky found, that in his research, national importance was equally important to flashbulb memory formation across cultures. However, he also found that an individualistic culture such as the US had more flashbulb memories than collectivistic cultures such as China. This is because in collectivistic cultures it is not culturally appropriate to focus on oneself’s emotions and feelings as much as an individualistic culture where it is about ‘me’ where the US participants focused on their emotions and feelings, something out of the question in collectivist cultures.

This study has high ecological validity as it places the subjects in a real-life scenario, with the same language questions they are better able to connect with the language and recall better. In contrast, the danger of ecological fallacies is dangerous to the test because it is based on the Western test by Brown and Kulik, which uses standard-based interview questions. The ecological fallacy this test has that is based on the assumption that everyone from one culture would recall that one specific event or react in the same way. In addition, the importance of events could be a major factor in the rapidity and accuracy of recall in the participants, for example, if one person from an individualistic culture has a strong recall about a very big public event, he would have more accuracy and be able to recall faster than someone from a collectivistic culture. An example of this would be the Twin Tower attacks in the US, it is a very big event that every American remembers, compared to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China, were government redaction and the collectivistic nature of their culture would result in less recall. This study links to the cultural dimension theory and is for it by illustrating it in action and showing that, to a degree, it influences flashbulb memory.

Kullkofsky’s test on individualism vs collectivism can be recreated without the need of many factors, the main factors in this test include the participant’s culture (individualistic or collectivist), and their ability to recall an event. The study is valid and controls all the variables as much as possible to not influence the data, an example of this is the questions asked in the person’s native language, this removes language barriers. The translators also back-translated what the person said to ensure accuracy. Its high ecological validity solidifies the study’s reputation as being a trusted study that can be applied to a wide range of scenarios.

In conclusion, there is a notable correlation between individualism and collectivism and their likelihood to create flashbulb memories. It is important to keep in mind which type of culture any participant can influence the memory, it is also imperative to question how far the research can go on before the results get distorted.

Have you ever found yourself “filling in” details of a story you were telling, even if the details weren’t exactly true? That is because you cannot trust your memory for many reasons. Your memory is not a camcorder and only picks up the gist of what people are telling you while filling in the gaps on it’s own, “repressed” memories are easily planted in one’s brain that are false, and not all people are taking the correct measures to effectively memorize materials for everyday life.

First and foremost, the reason you can’t trust your memory is because your memory is not a camcorder! When we are in the midst of a conversation with anyone, our brain only picks up bits and pieces of the conversation. “We remember the gist of what we were thinking when a person was talking, not exactly what was stated” (McDermott). This being said, some important details can easily be left out when attempting to restate what a person said, which is a common result of the ugly: rumors. “The formation of a false memory happens in the same way as the formation of a true memory. The same structures are being used” (Stark). This is why it is so easy to believe something, even if it is completely made up.

This leads into the next point, that “repressed memories” may not always be true. This isn’t the most popular statement with the height of the “Me Too” movement among society, but it is true. “In 1992, a Missouri church counselor helped Beth R. “remember” her father hurting her multiple times during her childhood. Medical evidence later proved the 22 year old woman’s memories were false. A lawsuit against the therapist was settled for $1 million” (True or False). A lot of times, therapists may assume that problems patients have are a result of childhood trauma that never even happened, so they end up planting false memories in patients brains. As a result of that, the patients believe the false memory in the sense of feeling like they have justification to their other problems. There is one specific experiment done that bounces off of false memories. “One experiment included Bugs Bunny in fake ads for Disney resorts. After showing the ads, researchers asked which characters people had personally met at Disneyland. About 1 out of every 6 people falsely remembered meeting Bug’s Bunny” (True or False).

The next piece of evidence there is that memory is not credible, is a survey conducted by me with the target as classmates. The first question was “Do you forget things, then remember them some time later frequently?” 72% of the population, well over half, answered yes. This proves that these memories have plenty of time to sit and become overloaded with information that could possibly alter them until they are conveniently remembered once again. The next question was “When you are telling someone a story, something that personally happened to you or that you witnessed, do you find yourself ‘filling in the blanks’ because you can’t truthfully remember what happened?” 62%, once again over half, of people admitted that they do in fact fill in the blanks, because they only took in the gist of what was happening. Memories most often are to be looked at like jotting down notes, not a video that can be played back on spot. In a recent article in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, psychologists William Hurst and Elizabeth Phelps review 50 years of research on so-called “flashbulb memories”. These are recollections of emotionally charged events. The term alludes to the experience that these events are seared into memory as if they were flash photos.

Researchers typically conduct studies on flashbulb memories as follows: immediately after a major national or international event, psychologists interview hundreds of ordinary people about their experience. Key questions include:

• When did you hear about the event?
• Where were you?
• What were you doing?
• How did you find out?

Months or even years later, the researchers contact the respondents again and ask them the same questions. They also ask them to rate the vividness of the memory and how confident they are of its accuracy. We know that as time passes our memory for ordinary personal events declines in accuracy. What’s more, we also feel that our recollections of those events are fading. That is, we doubt the accuracy of those memories.

But flashbulb memories are different. We remember them as if they’d happened yesterday, even though they took place many years ago. They don’t fade with time but remain vivid and clear in our mind. Further, our confidence about their accuracy stays high, no matter how many years have passed. Hurst and Phelps point out that researchers can’t really assess the accuracy of memories, even on the first reporting, because they didn’t observe the moment that the memory was formed. Also, several days had already elapsed by the time of the first interview, and we know from other research that that’s plenty of time for a memory to morph. However, what researchers can and do look for is consistency between the first and second telling of the memory.

Half a century of research on flashbulb memories shows us that they don’t remain consistent from one retelling to the next. Just like any other memory, these seemingly vivid recollections shift their shape over time. We forget or misremember details and incorporate information we’ve only learned afterward into our memory of the original event. All of this occurs despite the fact that our confidence in the accuracy of the memory remains high. Finally, we all have positive flashbulb memories for key personal events in our lives — our wedding day, the birth of our first child. These are vivid memories we’ll cherish for a lifetime — even if we don’t remember them exactly as they occurred.

How does our working memory do encoding and remember depend on 2 factors: depth of processing and emotion factor (Craik and Lockhart, 1972 as cited in Saul McLeod, 2007). Craik & Tulving (1975) mentioned depth of processing refers to: the deeper we process the information, the information will likely to stay in our memory longer. Depth of processing is further described into 2 levels of depth: Deep processing and shallow processing. Emotion factor refers to an arousal of emotional state whether is happy emotions or sad emotions that associates to the events that we can vividly remember so well: called flashbulb memory.

To start with depth of processing theory, we have 2 options to have: deep processing or shallow processing to the stimulus from our environment. Saul McLeod (2007) mentioned for this theory: depth of processing is just creating memory trace that does not distinctively categorized into short-term memory or long-term memory. This theory purely just talking about how the mind process information. Shallow processing involve 2 types: structural processing (appearance) and phonemic processing (read with sound). Example: I perform shallow processing when I spell and read the word APPLE. On the other hand, deep processing that involve semantic processing is by assigning meaning to the word APPLE as red colour, fruit, healthy, my favorite fruit or picture an apple in the mind, that requires further thinking.

Example from my experience, remembering my shopping list, if I were to just list the items on a paper will just my shallow processing where I might miss out some of my shopping checklist because I can’t remember all. To perform a deep processing to my shopping list, I will have to use method of loci to remember my list. Visualizing my shopping items in my mind in the places with I am familiar with and create the most ridiculous animated series or story, reason is the more ridiculous and crazy ideas for the pictorial mapping, the memory trail will be more vivid in the semantic memory: imagine seeing eggs jumping on my bed and then bread is hanging upside down from the ceiling. This is also one kind of semantic processing where I associate a meaning to my list. Basically deep processing the meaning for the words require general knowledge from us to be able to understand its’ associative meaning. Another powerful tool to remember a series of number is using imagery to associates with number in chunk. 047333 will be imagine as my kid wearing a t-shirt number 04 to use 7 darts to throw on 3 dart boards (333).

Deep processing also will be able to create episodic memory which involve personal experience or emotion. This episodic memory also equivalent as autobiographical memory and flashbulb memory. What makes the whole different if we compare semantic memory versus episodic memory is facts for semantic, emotion and personal experience for episodic. This kind of memories are episodes of our first day to school, honeymoon trip, wedding day, graduation day and accidents which happened to us. Example: semantic memory will define Produa Kancil is a very compact and economical car. Episodic memory will define Kancil was my first car because of my excitement receiving my first car from my dad. Remembered how my dad brought me to second-hand car dealer to choose the car. All the details of place to buy and color of my Kancil I can remember vividly due to because I had an emotional link to all these events. It could be my flashbulb memory as well. Able to vividly remember so well when and where it happen. Flashbulb memories are memories which is vividly remember anytime, I remembered vividly the day I chose to put down my dog to sleep due to some health complication. I cried so much and had a deep emotional breakdown at that moment. Remembered exactly what my mum said and the vet said, both have strong emotional link to my decision to put my dog to sleep. Remembered I had to receive stitches on my scalp after the accident of falling down from staircase before I am five years old. Brown and Kulik (1977, as cited in Travis Dixon, 2017) quoted flashbulb memories are “memories for the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event”. Travis Dixon (2017) mentioned flashbulb memories most likely will only being created with 2 factors involve: high level of surprise or high levels of emotion. Without these factors, the events might just remained as memories of normal events.

In general, the depth of processing of the information will retain the memory longer either in semantic memory or episodic memory. Semantic does have meaning attached while episodic have emotional reaction attached. Therefore very much explain why we are able to remember certain memory better than other by having deep processing.

Research Question 1

A study was made to investigate flashbulb theory. This theory states that these memories or recollections for the conditions in which one initially learned of an exceptionally consequential and emotionally triggering event. A critical aspect of this study was to inspect the supposition that individuals recall sorts of open public events exceeding those common occasions that happened similarly sometime in their past. Students at the University of Duke were notified and where assessed on their memories of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States as well as a recent mundane event in their lives. This study took place on the 12th of September 2001 and the students who partook were reimbursed for their time in this study with either 10 dollars or class credit. On the 12th of September all participants were questioned on how they found out about the attacks. The students were placed in one of three follow up groups which consisted of both males and females with each section of people containing 18 people. The first group comprised of four males and fourteen females, who were tested a week later, after the attacks. The second group were tested 42 days later and consisted of 6 males and the last group had four males, who were tested 224 days after the event occurred. The study was conducted using autobiographical memory questionnaire and open-ended questionnaires. The autobiographical questionnaire used a rating scale measure intended to evaluate different properties of personal memory. The open-ended questions were asked during every study and primarily focused on inquiring into finding out explicitly about how the student knew about the terrorist attacks on the 11th of September, and the second set of questions subsequently probed into a regular occasion from the student’s life in the upcoming days before the attacks. The key features of biographical memories are the memory of the occasion and the conviction that the occasion happened are the conclusive properties of personal memory.

The members were asked as to whether the memory came in pictures or words such as a rational story and not as a disengaged actuality, perception or scene. This depended on key details to their life, not on broad understanding that they would anticipate that the majority of people should have. Emotion was an extremely important factor in this study due to it being seen as an exceptional system that that clarifies the flashbulb memory theory, there was an investigation into different passionate parts of the members’ memories. The second session was identical to the first apart from the daily event was signaled with the short account that the students gave at the beginning session, while the flashbulb session was prompted with the same phrase as in the first session. Participants were also tasked to fill in a PTSD checklist for a specific experience, designed PTSD symptoms. The conclusions of this study by the authors showed that a flashbulb event amplifies characteristics of the memory, such as vividness and confidence.

Research Question 2

The study was run to investigate the effect of flashbulb theory and memories on a historical event and how it is remembered when compared to a person’s normal mundane event in their life. It fills in a gap in this specific area of research and provided an insight into memories and helps to support previous research (Brown and Kulik, 1977). Studies by Brewer (1986, 1992) aimed to develop the flashbulb theory and compare it with other forms of memory in humans. The original concept of the flashbulb theory (Brown and Kulik, 1977) was improved upon and further research showed how there was a need to experimentally test this supposition that people remember traumatic and negative public events better than normal events that happened the same amount of time ago. This was not studied or previously investigated and thus the research was restricted by the oversight of such a control. To get a reasonable portrayal of this view into the research of the correlation between flashbulb memories of the September 11th attacks and non-flashbulb memories, autobiographical memories with an average event that happened in advance of the attacks served as the control memory.

In a symposium on flashbulb recollections sorted out by Winograd and Neisser (1992), the need to exactly test this supposition that was recognized by both Rubin (1992) and Brewer (1992), who both noticed that numerous ends drawn by past research were restricted by the oversight of such a control. In this manner, to get a reasonable portrayal of non-flashbulb personal recollections from a similar timeframe as the flashbulb recollections of the September 11 assaults, we requested that members distinguish and report a regular occasion from the days going before the assaults to fill in as a control memory.

The design of this study validated the new conclusions drawn from this research about flashback memories and recollections, as we started testing one day after the flashbulb memory occasion and afterward tried each gathering just once from that point onward.

There have been work that has followed this research, adding and expanding the way we view flashbulb memories and how they work compared to normal event memories. One such study (Tinti, Schmidt, Testa, Levine, 2014) looked at how distinct processes influence our memories on flashbulb and event memories. Their study looked into flashbulb memories in Italian citizens to describe how they felt after Italy won the 2006 Football world championship after a prolonged time of 18 months. The results of this experiment have significant ramifications for the discussion concerning whether the development of flashbulb memory and occasion memory include various procedures and for seeing how flashbulb memory can be at the same time so distinctive and vivid inclined to error. This has supported our study as the vividness of flashbulb memory is enhanced and which supports our study as our conclusion found that flashbulb events reliably impact vividness as a memory characteristic.

Research Question 3

The introduction to the research experiment was well set up to initiate the topic of the study was clear as are the goals of the research as it was set out in a concise and well written manner. The authors reasons for running the study to the inquiry of the flashbulb memory, including the investigation into what causes their event, the precision of the recollections, and the impact of feeling on them have all come into question. The specific attentiveness given to the factor of emotion into the importance of its effect on memory is responsible for most of the flashbulb memory theory. The significance of emotion is well argued as the crucial importance of emotion is a factor in our response to negative public events, although it can be critiqued as they only focused on the validity of flashbulb theory. Due to only facial expressions and the participants decision to communicate to their own level on how they feel and could not be as honest or straightforward in response. This could be improved upon in later studies and should be considered in later experiments. The independent variable is the time after which the interview was conducted and the dependent variable

The method for this study could be improved upon as the sample size was quite small. A larger sample size would allow for more responses and data on the topic and therefore be more representative. There seems to be a selection bias as the ratio to males to females was unequal. There were more females in each of the three groups and as such means that the results of the study are confounding. To enhance the study for future experiments there should be an equal sampling of males and females as this would make the results more valid and ensure validity. The sample also only featured students at the university of Duke. The lack of range in ages limits the research study as a wider variety of ages would ensue better and more representative results. To ensure reliability results should be precise and standardised the conditions of the research. The method is not that that well designed and improvements could be made for future experiments such as altering the sample size to make it more inclusive and less limited.

The results are set out in a clear and precise manner and the graphs are well explained and they include all the relevant information needed to show the findings of the research experiment. The authors conclusions from the study are reasonable and well thought out and the theoretical biases are reflected in the conclusions.

If we assume the conclusions are valid the implications of the work show how flashbulb theory reliably magnifies memory features such as confidence and vividness, which can form the basis for future studies. The study found out that none of the participant suffered from PTSD which is another useful aspect of insight that can be of use to other studies in the future.