Flashbulb Memory

Flashbulb memory is a distinctive and vivid memory. They are also long lasting, accurate and detailed. These memories are from personal circumstances surrounding a person’s discovery of shocking events. People remember these memories with clear details of the emotions they were feeling, the place where they were, and what they were doing when they first heard the news. These memories are so vivid that people can even remember irrelevant details, such as, weather or what they were wearing. Even though a flashbulb memory could be from previous years early, people can remember these memories like they just happened yesterday.Although, people remember what events happened on these certain days they can’t remember what they did the day before or possibly the day after. The aspect that makes these memories a lifelong memory is the emotion behind the memory. The emotion felt at the time of the event is what turns the memory from a regular memory in to a flashbulb memory. Emoti onal reactions stimulate the release of hormones that have been shown to enhance the formation of long term memories (Saundra K. Ciccarelli, 2009) In addition, people remember emotional trauma better than they remember every day events.The initial shock or stress caused by these extreme events can cause people’s memory to be misread. It has been suggested by a newsletter titled, Memory Disorder Project (2006), that a person has to require participation of the amygdala to actually have had a flashbulb memory. Amygdala is a brain structure involved in emotional memory, and possibly other brain systems which regulates mood and alertness. Amygdala also can regulate the encoding, storage and retrieval of episodic memory. The amygdala may be vital to the retrieval of memories from emotional public events.There have been horrible events that have been perfect examples to research people’s flashbulb memories. In past decades, events such as assignations of John F. Kennedy, Mar tin Luther King Jr. , and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger have been used to research flashbulb memories. In more current events, people’s memories of the 9/11 attacks have been studied to find out more information about flashbulb memories. An individual can have flashbulb memories of their personal life experiences too. Examples of these would possibly be the death of a family member, or just the opposite, the birth of a family member.A couple personal flashbulb memories I have are the memories of my son being born, and the moment my sister was diagnosed with a life changing brain malformation. I remember exactly what I was feeling, and even what I was wearing during the instant these events occurred. The psychologist, Colegrove started writing in 1899 described how middle-aged people remembered exactly what they were doing thirty-five years ago, when Abraham Lincoln was shot. In the late 1970’s two people Brown and Kulik, started doing research on flashb ulb memories.Their theories seemed to support the idea of adrenaline effects on memory. In the 1970’s the classic example of â€Å"Where were you when you heard about Kennedy being shot. †. Brown and Kulik introduced the term flashbulb memory, along with the first model of the process in developing flashbulb accounts. They suggested a flashbulb memory cannot occur without a high level of surprise or emotional arousal. The four models they proposed was the photographic model, comprehensive model, emotional-integrative model, and the importance driven emotional reactions model.Even further studies of flashbulb memories led people to look in to their accuracy of the actual events. A psychologist named Neisser argued that flashbulb memories are not as accurate as people think they are. He suggested that flashbulb memories are really like â€Å"life markers†. When a significant event occurs, it becomes part of your life history. â€Å"We know our world is changed fr om that moment on, but that doesn’t mean they are accurate. † (Flashbulb Memory). There have been disagreements debating whether flashbulb memories are accurate enough to be categorized in their own group.One reason over this disagreement is because flashbulb memories fade away over time, which is also how regular memories work. Another reason, flashbulb memories are doubted is that they can be very unstable. Flashbulbs can seem extremely vivid because the memories are often retold over and over again. They are not remembered as vividly without constantly thinking about it. â€Å"Accuracy reduces during the first three months and levels at about twelve months. †(Wikipedia, 2010). Flashbulb memories are sometimes classified as a type of autobiography memory.Autobiography memory is memory used in our everyday life. A memory goes through the first stage, encoding. At this stage, a set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that in formation into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems. The next step is storage, where a person’s brain holds on to information for an amount of time. Finally, the last memory process is retrieving. This step can be difficult, as well as impossible. During retrieval, memories can be distorted.Flashbulb memories can still be distorted like all other memories, but they seem to be more vivid in our minds. Normal everyday memories are entered in to our sensory memory. We perceive information with our senses. Then, information goes from sensory memory to short term memory. This transfer occurs because of selective attention, which is the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input. Information then is processed in to long term memory. These are long lasting memories that can be stored for a long period of time until memory is retrieved.This transfer can only occur through elaborative rehearsal (Saundra K. Ciccarelli, 2009). Three items t hat are thought to have significant affects on flashbulb memories are consequentiality, distinctiveness of an event, and personal involvement and proximity. Consequentiality is the main characteristic for determining flashbulb memories. The consequence of an event is a particular variable in the making and keeping of flashbulb memory. Two models of flashbulb memories state that the consequence of an event determines the intensity of emotional reactions.Distinctiveness of an event has been considered to be a large contribution to the efficiency of flashbulb memories. Flashbulbs memories have been identified as unique and distinctive from everyday memories. It has been documented that people actually involved in the event are going to remember the event better over time. People who had no direct experience will not have a precise flashbulb memory of the event the way people who were involved or in close proximity (Wikipedia, 2010) Even through the controversy of how accurate flashbulb memories are, or how they work, no one can deny the mystery of them.A person in their own curiosity has to wonder how they remember so many details of the day of a impacting event on their life ten years ago, but they can’t remember what they ate the for breakfast yesterday morning. Flashbulb memory is an appropriate name for the phenomena because these memories can be like clear flashes of what really happened during the time when a person heard this information and felt the emotions at that time. Those emotions stimulating the amygdala makes the memory last longer.Through research of people’s reactions and memories of catastrophic public events, we as a society have learned more details about flashbulb memories. Even though, the research started over a century ago, there are many other unclear topics of flashbulb memories. Such as, exactly what types of memory a flashbulb memory is, how it is retrieved, and how is it different from regular everyday memories. As long as memories have consequentiality, distinctiveness, proximity, or involvement, it will be a long lasting memory. Until proved otherwise these memories will be known as flashbulb memories.