FLASHBULB AND EVENT MEMORIES
This section summarizes the entire article. It includes the background ration, the methods, the findings and what the findings imply.
Background rationale
Flashbulb memories are vivid, long-term recalls for unpredictable emotionally laden and events with consequences. Examples of past events that have flashbulb reminiscences are the assassination of Martin Luther King Jnr and Abraham Lincoln. The authors wanted to know the properties of the flashbulb, what led to the occurrence of the memories and the emotional influence on them. It was importantly assumed that people memories the public negative emotional events better than the ordinary events that ensued similarly.
Research questions
In the study the authors raised different questions that helped in finding answers to the study.
- Are flashbulb memories and daily memories consistent?
- Do contributors possess a greater sense of recollection and vividness of the flashbulb memories?
- What effect does emotional impact have on the observed differences?
- What are the ways through which daily memories and flashbulb memories differ?
METHODS USED IN THE STUDY
A number of methods were used in the study. Learners of Duke were communicated to and later tested for the memory of getting information about the US attack of the 11th September 2001. They were assigned on of the three follow ups organized within the academic calendars so as to obtain almost similar steps on a scale of Logarithm. A total of 18 members participated in the survey. Flashbulb And Event Memories
Data collection methods.
The researchers collected data using varied methods.
Open ended questionnaires: The participants were asked several open ended questions during each session. They were asked how they heard the terrorist attack that transpired on 11th September, 2001. They were also asked about daily proceedings in their lives preceding the attacks. Several similar questions were asked concerning the memory types. Some of the questions asked were, who first told them the information , where the news was first heard, where they were when the news was first heard and whether there were others present and if there’re were who were they . Distinctive details from the events were also needed.
Two to three depiction that indicated an exclusive event was also required. The events given for the day to day memories were distinctive for the life of an average college student for instance studying, parties and sports.
Autobiographical memory questionnaire was also used. This was a rating-scale measure designed to asses various properties of autobiographical memory. The perfect features considered were relocation of the event and confidence that the event happened. A recollection was created by collapsing answers to questions concerning the participant’s feelings. A question enquiring whether the members believed that the occurrence in their memories ensued as it is remembered (from 1,100% imaginary up to 7,100% real) and whether they could be convinced that the memory was not right.
They were asked if the remembrance was in form of words or pictures as a clear story or episode and not as an isolated fact, scene or observation. A number of researchers consider emotions to specially describe the phenomenon of the flashbulb retention. The respondents were therefor asked to rate the present emotional intensity of the remembrance. Consistency of their feelings were also wanted. Finally ways of memorizing were used since contributors usually judge the objective rate of recurrence of an event poorly. Ratings on how the vents were discussed were necessary. Flashbulb And Event Memories
Data scoring
The memory data were scored by two self-determining raters who tallied the number of details given. A detail was any verb, noun, distinctive modifier or phrase. The respondents were expected to be consistent in their responses. Inconsistent results were identified. Differences in coding were resolved by discussion. Dependability between the two coders for the number of documented information was 96% for the flashbulb memories and 97% for the daily memories.
Findings
According to the study, the measures of recall consistency showed that there was no difference between flashbulb and everyday remembrance as a way off passing time and the lack of interactions between the types of memory. The types of memories differed in their phenomenological features. The interactions between the type of memory and the passage of time were almost zero for the recall questions but were significant for several rated features of the remembrance. Language narrative and emotions demonstrated only main effect of remembrance type with flashbulb recollections higher in narrative rationality, less fragment of greater emotional intensity and of great negative valence.
In terms of consistency, it was realized that consistent and inconsistent details were similar in the two remembrance type. For the recall questions, there was a critical effect of session for constant responses and no interaction with the type of memory. Flashbulb memories are easily remembered and they are unusually steady with time. The participants believed that the flashbulb memories were more constant that the everyday remembrance. Flashbulb memories ensued as more coherent stories everyday recalls. High chances of participant showing memories in their eyes was more evident in everyday memories. The most outstanding feature of emotion is valence and respondents rated the flashbulb memories with a lot of negativity. Flashbulb And Event Memories
Implication of the findings
From the findings, it can be deduced that emotion is a very important property of flashbulb memory. There existed the main effect of memory type, but no other effects of sessions or groups. The researchers outlined that the difference shouldn’t affect the succeeding analysis on emotional contributions to memory phenomenon. The memories of everyday events could be observed in the people’s eyes implied that an observer can easily not the impact the memory has on the participant. Flashbulb memories are not easy to forget therefore it shows that memories of flashbulb events have greater impacts on the participant’s lives.
Constancy in the remembrance of flashbulb memories implied that flashbulb events have a great impact on people’s lives.
975 words.
REFERENCE APA
Talarico, J. M., & Rubin, D. C. (2003). Confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb memories. Psychological science, 14(5), 455-461.
Historical context of the article
This section describes the historical context of the article. It critically what was initially known and unknown before the article was written and what was known after the writing of the article.
What was known or unknown before the paper was written
Flashbulb memories are of the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential event that arouses emotions. Before the article was published the news on president john Kennedy being shot was heard. The news about the murder is remembered clearly. It is clearly evident that any person that had heard of the death of John Kennedy can clearly remember when the evident occurred and where. Brown and Kulik clearly stated that it is not the remembrance of the terrific news that makes one have questions on the incident but the individual’s own conditions. The people related the whole incidence to where they were. Giving the memory the name a flashbulb is good although it predicts surprise, an illumination of indiscrimination and courage. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and the attempt to assassinate George Ford ere one of the instances that people live to remember. The creation of a flashbulb remembrance starts with the registration of surprise coming up within an important region. Every person when receives a terrific news that breaks them, they may not carry out their usual activities well or even visit the usual places. According to Livingston’s theory, “The now print”, what had to be neurologically printed and to be permanently stored was not the condition of an unpredicted and biologically important event, but the incident itself.
During the recent decades, there has existed a number of confusions in the texts as to whether undesirable emotional incidents are properly or poorly retained. Laboratory studies showed varied results about remembrance of emotional occurrences while investigation on real world depicted that emotional happenings are properly recalled in the memory. Research has shown that interpreting flashbulb occurrence differ among those who advocate biological evolutionary factors.
Views after the paper was published
Recently many psychology scholars have done a lot of research using the article. According to many researches who cited the work, it is claimed that psychology is concerned with the identification of how a process functions. The process is explained as series of changes and therefore the researchers in psychological field are tasked with plotting and examining forms of changes in variables and in links between variables. Since the publication of the article by Jennifer and David, several studies have shown an appealing concordance in disciplines, memorizing surprising national events such as assassinations, terror attacks and unnecessary shootings.
Studies by psychologists have shown that studying other people’s stories show that lives of several people are no longer promising. Studies have shown that long lasting memories are affected by the experienced emotion in the learning process and also by the experienced emotion during memories are being retrieved. The role of neurological organs have also been like the neural areas have been found to help in retaining emotional memories. Some scholars have recently shown that the combination of the amygdala with the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus play a critical role retrieving recalls for emotional occurrences. Remembrances of people’s life experiences are probably characterized by representations in the form of neuronal action. Events that raise emotion are always remembered with higher accuracy and intensity. The amygdala is properly functional during emotional circumstances and the action influences the encoding and consolidation of the remembrance trace for the emotional occurrence. The use of autobiographical memories by scholars have been shown to demonstrate the importance of straightforward systems model in accounting for present data and foreseeing important results.
Further studies have shown that investigating long-lasting retention depict slowing in the rate of being unable to remember the events. Flashbulb recalls and their associated incident memories are usually well thought-out to be exceptional since they consist of proceedings that are not usual or every day and commonly they are not individually experienced but rather are public and charged with emotions. Lately research exploration on the long-lasting retaining of flashbulb recalls and the connected event memories. The rates of not being able to recall the occurrences and how dissimilar aspects of the remembrance might not be remembered at varying rates, as well as the factors linked with the withholding of the m memories of the everyday events and the flashbulb remembrances.
Similar studies have shown that one’s moods can easily be seen in the case of daily memories as compared to the fill only when they remember people tend to recall only when they remember when and where the occurrences took place. Forgetting the memories of flashbulb events does not easily occur in the first year but it is later observed while the rate slows down within subsequent years. Flashbulb
