Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Empirical studies
- Part II Developmental studies
- Part III Emotion and memory
- 7 A proposed neurobiological basis for regulating memory storage for significant events
- 8 Remembering the details of emotional events
- 9 Do flashbulb memories differ from other types of emotional memories?
- 10 Why do traumatic experiences sometimes produce good memory (flashbulbs) and sometimes no memory (repression)?
- Part IV Theoretical issues
- Author index
- Subject index
9 - Do flashbulb memories differ from other types of emotional memories?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Empirical studies
- Part II Developmental studies
- Part III Emotion and memory
- 7 A proposed neurobiological basis for regulating memory storage for significant events
- 8 Remembering the details of emotional events
- 9 Do flashbulb memories differ from other types of emotional memories?
- 10 Why do traumatic experiences sometimes produce good memory (flashbulbs) and sometimes no memory (repression)?
- Part IV Theoretical issues
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
One field of research that is pertinent to the relationship between emotion and memory, and that most consistently demonstrates high memory performance for negative emotionally arousing events, is research on so-called “flashbulb memories” (see Brown & Kulik, 1977). Since the publication of the original study by Brown and Kulik (1977), numerous studies have shown an impressive concordance in subjects' remembering of shocking national events, such as assassinations, and so forth (see e.g., Bohannon, 1988; Christianson, 1989; Colgrove, 1899; Pillemer, 1984; Rubin & Kozin, 1984; Winograd & Killinger, 1983). Not only does such emotionally shocking news itself appear to be well preserved, but so too do the subjects' memories of the specific detail information associated with the circumstances under which they heard the news. In this chapter, I will discuss how these so-called flashbulb memories compare with memories of other types of emotional events such as personal traumatic events and laboratory-induced emotional events. In this comparison, I will focus on how detailed and persistent these memories are over time. I will also discuss whether a special memory mechanism is involved in remembering flashbulb events as well as other types of emotional events. Before moving on with a discussion of flashbulb memories, I will briefly discuss research concerning memory for negative emotional events. In discussing this research, I use the term “negative emotional events” to refer to scenes or experiences that have very unpleasant features, and that have the potential to evoke strong negative emotional feelings in a victim or a witness.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Affect and Accuracy in RecallStudies of 'Flashbulb' Memories, pp. 191 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
- 17
- Cited by