Flashbulb Memories

1. Flashbulb memories are very detailed and vivid reconstructive memories that are usually linked with emotion and last a lifetime. Originally, flashbulb memories were thought to be very accurate and uneasily forgotten. One of the first studies ever done on flashbulb memories was Brown and Kulik (1977). They wanted to investigate if flashbulb memories were as accurate as everyone hypothesized they were. They had 80 participants in their study. Each participant was asked to recall memories that were linked to a shocking event. The results were that participants were able to recall the memories vividly and with much detail. Memories that were linked with a high level of emotion such as the assassination of JFK or a death of a relative caused

Primacy affects our recall because we tend to remember information from the beginning of a list. Recency affects our recall because we tend to remember information at the end of a list as well. Primacy however has a greater effect than recency. These two are parts of the serial position effect. The serial position effect states that you are more likely to remember information from the beginning and end of the list than the middle because of primacy and recency. Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) conducted an experiment on the serial position effect. Their aim was to investigate the effect of recency on recall. They gave the participants a list with items to memorize. The participants were asked to recall the items in any order. The results were that the participants recalled the information from the beginning and the end the best. When the results were graphed it showed a U-curve because of the high percentage that was remembered in the beginning and the end but low percentage remembered in the middle. (Glanzer and Cunitz, 1966) Deep processing affects recall because we tend to remember information more if we analyze it more with meaning rather than the physical aspect of it. A study done on deep processing is Craik and Tulving (1975). Their aim was to investigate if the best way to recall was to analyze the deeper meaning of the material. The participants were shown a list of words to later recognize on a recognition test but they were asked questions about the word. The

We can forget information through decay which is the when memories fade away that happens in sensory and short-term memory. Interference can cause us to forget because it is a memory blocking or deleting another memory. Two types of interference are retroactive and proactive interference. Retroactive interference is when new information interferes with the old information. Proactive interference is when old information interferes with the new information. We can also repress our memories which means that we push the unwanted memory so deep inside the mind it becomes outside of our awareness. Cue-dependent forgetting is the most common type of forgetting which is when we cannot access a memory because we don’t have enough retrieval cues. State-dependent learning is important because we can access memories better if we are in the same environmental and emotional state. Retrograde amnesia is when we lose memories before an event occurred. Anterograde amnesia is when we can’t form new memories after an event occurs. A study that exemplifies forgetting is Millner & Scoville (1957) study on H.M. They found out that H.M could no longer be able to form new memories because the hippocampus is needed to transfer short-term memories into long-term memories. Since H.M is no longer able to form new memories, he suffers from anterograde amnesia. (Millner & Scoville,