Do Flashbulb Memories Differ Essay Research Paper

Do Flashbulb Memories Differ Essay, Research Paper

.Our past is preserved in a variety of

memories of very different nature. (Salaman, 1970)

There are many proposed divisions and

sub-divisions of human memory, such as working memory, procedural memory,

semantic memory or episodic memory. Many of the systems seem to overlap, with

each having varying functions related to the maintenance of what is essentially

human life. For example, episodic and autobiographical memory fundamentally

share the same functions. One of the many functions is what Tulving (1983)

called .Mental time travel., the ability to experience past event.

Autobiographical memories are thought to be structured at different levels of

temporal and spatial specificity that together are used as reference for the

construction of .self.. This mental time travel can take place through

different hierarchic levels of autobiographical organisation. The hierarchy

level can be as general as .university. or as specific as remembering the topic

of conversation with a certain person on a certain day (Cohen, 1998).

Autobiographical memories are therefore seen as being autonoetic in that they

carry information about the context in which they were experienced. One

example of an extreme form of contextual specific memory is the death of

Princess Diana. Many people especially the media ask a common question such as

.what were you doing when you heard the news.. Many people claim to be able to

remember such major moments with unusual clarity and vividness, as if the

events were etched on their minds throughout their lives. The question is

whether these .flashbulb memories. are functionally different to all other

types of memory such as autobiographical memory.Brown & Kulik (1977), introduced the term

flashbulb memory to describe memories that are preserved in an almost

indiscriminate way. They postulated that these flashbulb memories were indeed

different from ordinary memories, with some defining characteristics. Although

these memories are thought to be photographic in their clarity and detail, they

do not preserve all features of an event. Conversely Brown & Kulik proposed

that idiosyncratic event details are remembered. These details help form what

has been described as a .live. memory in that the .reception field. is

remembered including .where., .when. and .who with. factors of an event. Brown

& Kulik (1977) studied memories for important events such as the death of

John F Kennedy. They found that irrelevant details were often recalled and it

appeared that they had retained .a brief moment of time associated with an

emotional event. (Smyth et al, 1994). Brown & Kulik suggested that

flashbulb memories are formed by the activity of an ancient brain mechanism

evolved to capture emotional and cognitive information relevant to the survival

of an individual or group. To summarise, flashbulb memories FMs are

thought to be an unique survival mechanism distinct from other form of memory

in their clarity, longevity and attention to idiosyncratic detail. These characteristics of flashbulb memories

can be mapped onto issues concerning memory. As with many memory systems, the

argument over the distinctiveness of flashbulb memories involves encoding,

storage and retrieval. These issues

relate to many issues within Flashbulb memory such as their formation,

accuracy, consistency and longevity. It appears that these processes are

interrelated with each process being dependent on another. In terms of FM formation, Brown & Kulik

thought that the clarity and detail of FMs is correlated with the emotion,

surprise and personal consequentiallity of the event. They also thought that

surprise initiates FM formation, while personal consequentiallity determines

the elaborateness of the resulting FM. As support for this they found that more

blacks had FMs associated with the death of Martin Luther King compared to

whites. Apparently this was due to an increased emotional personal

consequentiallity felt their part of society.

Therefore self referring prior knowledge of surprising important events

is thought to support privileged encoding of FMs compared to other mundane

memories. In support for this Livingstone (1967) proposed that when an event

passes a certain biological criterion, the limbic system discharges into the

reticular system, which further discharges throughout the cortical hemispheres.

This firing above a certain level has been termed the .now print. mechanism.

This system can be seen as being rather like the flash going off on a camera.

However this view is criticised on the grounds that this .biological level. is

not specifically identified. In a further criticism Neisser (1982c) has

claimed that FMs are not specially encoded and therefore not unique. Neisser

proposed that FMs were Simply ordinary me

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