Flashbulb or Flashback
By: Dawson Lewis
Why I chose...
About Flashbulb Memory
How the Brain is involved??
A Study...
Phelps and her team studied functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brains of 24 people who were in New York City on the day of the terrorist attacks. Three years after the attacks, they observed the participants’ brain activity during recall of the day’s events, as well as other autobiographical events from the preceding summer. The participants, who were asked to retrieve memories of Sept. 11 while being scanned, rated their memories for vividness, level of detail, and confidence in the accuracy of the memories, and they were asked to write about their personal experience of the terrorist attacks and where they were at the time.
People who were in downtown Manhattan, near the World Trade Center, reported more vivid recollections of the attacks, including specific details about sounds and smells, than people who were a few miles away, in midtown, and experienced the event via television or the Internet.
Intersting facts...
- One reason that the flashbulb memories are remembered is because these memories tend to be retold over and over again.
- Sometimes these memories are not necessarily accurate. Accuracy reduces during the first 3 months and levels at about 12 months.
You start developing flashbulb memories around age 8.
One year after an event, 50 percent of the details you can recall change.
Humans are terrible at remembering how they felt at the moment.
Media can highly influence your memories.