Flashbulb Memoriesby Brown & KulikHeaven, Jenna and Jong Kwan

What is flashbulb memory?

• It was suggested by Brown and Kulik in 1977• A kind of emotional memory• Vivid and detailed memories of highly

emotional events• Recorded in the brain like a camera’s flash

• Formed instantaneously and remembered forever, after experiencing shocking events

Brown and Kulik’s Experiment

• Clear memories of actions, emotions, and place• Many recalled flashbulb memories of personal

events• Emotional events are better remembered than less

emotional events, due to special neural mechanism• Events are better remembered when there is a high

level of emotional arousal at the time of the notification of an event, and the surprise following it.

Neisser’s suggestion

• People do not always know that an event is important until later

• Flashbulb memories are governed by a storytelling schema following a specific structure

• Neisser and Harsch’s investigation in 1992 about people’s memory accuracy

• Neisser argued that these memories are often inaccurate and fabricated