What are flashbulb memories? How are they formed, and what differentiates them from other memories?
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A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) news was heard.The term "flashbulb memory" suggests the surprise, indiscriminate illumination, detail, and brevity of a photograph; however flashbulb memories are only somewhat indiscriminate and are far from complete.Evidence has shown that although people are highly confident in their memories, the details of the memories can be forgotten.
difference
Flashbulb memories are associated with PTSD. When one experiences a traumatic experience and doesn’t process it in its entirety within the first month post-trauma, the memory can be forgotten. It seems like it goes away; however, because it was not reexperienced, digested, and processed the way it should have been, in the individual vulnerable to developing PTSD, the memory of trauma is distributed all over the brain (in implicit brain regions) and is not easily retrievable. The individual developing PTSD will experience chronic anxiety and depression, sensitivity to traumatic sensory triggers, unexpectedly reexperience trauma-related stimuli, etc. Flashbulb memories are isolated vivid sensory snapshots of trauma stimuli and the associated (amygdalar and autonomic arousal-induced) terror that emerges when a trauma victim has PTSD and is in a safe environment. It’s possible, that its unexpected emergence has something to do with the hippocampus’s CA3’s region attempt at pattern separation in processing traumatic sensory stimuli. The hippocampal formation usually processes memory behind the scene and is largely outside one’s awareness. Other memories are usually deliberately retrievable and experienced at will. Flashbulb memories are not.
formation
A large group of subjects took part in a multinational test-retest study to investigate the formation of flashbulb (FB) memories for learning the news of the resignation of the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Over 86% of the U.K. subjects were found to have FB memories nearly 1 year after the resignation; their memory reports were characterized by spontaneous, accurate, and full recall of event details, including minutiae. In contrast, less than 29% of the non-U.K. subjects had FB memories 1 year later; memory reports in this group were characterized by forgetting, reconstructive errors, and confabulatory responses. A causal analysis of secondary variables showed that the formation of FB memories was primarily associated with the level of importance attached to the event and level of affective response to the news. These findings lend some support to the study by R. Brown and Kulik (1977), who suggest that FB memories may constitute a class of autobiographical memories distinguished by some form of
difference
Flashbulb memories are associated with PTSD. When one experiences a traumatic experience and doesn’t process it in its entirety within the first month post-trauma, the memory can be forgotten. It seems like it goes away; however, because it was not reexperienced, digested, and processed the way it should have been, in the individual vulnerable to developing PTSD, the memory of trauma is distributed all over the brain (in implicit brain regions) and is not easily retrievable. The individual developing PTSD will experience chronic anxiety and depression, sensitivity to traumatic sensory triggers, unexpectedly reexperience trauma-related stimuli, etc. Flashbulb memories are isolated vivid sensory snapshots of trauma stimuli and the associated (amygdalar and autonomic arousal-induced) terror that emerges when a trauma victim has PTSD and is in a safe environment. It’s possible, that its unexpected emergence has something to do with the hippocampus’s CA3’s region attempt at pattern separation in processing traumatic sensory stimuli. The hippocampal formation usually processes memory behind the scene and is largely outside one’s awareness. Other memories are usually deliberately retrievable and experienced at will. Flashbulb memories are not.
formation
A large group of subjects took part in a multinational test-retest study to investigate the formation of flashbulb (FB) memories for learning the news of the resignation of the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Over 86% of the U.K. subjects were found to have FB memories nearly 1 year after the resignation; their memory reports were characterized by spontaneous, accurate, and full recall of event details, including minutiae. In contrast, less than 29% of the non-U.K. subjects had FB memories 1 year later; memory reports in this group were characterized by forgetting, reconstructive errors, and confabulatory responses. A causal analysis of secondary variables showed that the formation of FB memories was primarily associated with the level of importance attached to the event and level of affective response to the news. These findings lend some support to the study by R. Brown and Kulik (1977), who suggest that FB memories may constitute a class of autobiographical memories distinguished by some form of
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Flashbulb memories are clear, distinct and detailed memories of a shocking event that occupies the brain more than than the event itself.
This is generated when a person hears any shocking news or faces some sort of shocking incident.The shocking details of the event get etched in the memory of the person for lifetime.
Other memories occupy the brain according to two categorisation: short term memory and long term memory, and are not necessarily associated with any shocking or surprising event unlike in case of flashbulb memories.
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