Flashbulb Memory Essay

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Emotion can have powerful negative or positive effects on memory. It’s said that emotional arousal can lead to a very clear memory for events occurring whilst in this state of arousal. A flashbulb memory is a lasting memory of the context in which the memory was made. It involves an enduring imprint of events surrounding an important incident i.e. who told you about 9/11? Brown and Kulik proposed the idea of Flashbulb Memories after being amazed at the detailed memories some people had of traumatic events. They said, providing an event; directly effects a person’s life, is seen as surprising and/or the person has prior knowledge so it can be related to existing memory structures, a special neural mechanism may be activated. This mechanism takes a ‘photograph’ of said event and ‘prints’ the details permanently into the memory system. The memory is said to be like a photo due to its unchanging nature and high levels of accuracy. The key ingredient to flashbulb memories is a high level of emotional arousal at the time the event was committed to memory. Evidence to support the idea of flashbulb memory comes from Brown and Kulik themselves. They looked at flashbulb memories of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Findings showed that 75~% of black Americans had flashbulb memories of the event compared to only 33% of white Americans. They concluded that flashbulb memories were stronger for famous assassinations of people of their own ethnicity. This shows that flashbulb memories might be well recalled if they event is seen as a personally relevant emotional event. In this case, personal relations are heightened by ethnicity. Due to the fact that these are real memories brought on by real events, the study is high in ecological validity meaning that the results are reflective of the real world. As well as this, generalisation of results is easier to perform.
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