Conway et al (1994) looked at personal memories about Mrs Thatcher’s resignation. They tested participants shortly afterwards and 11 months later interviewed them. Their belief, of why some studies do not support the flashbulb concept is that the memories are not significantly important enough to the participants therefore the flashbulb memories weren’t accurate nor enduring. In this study, 86% of participants still had memory surrounding the resignation, in comparison to 23% in other countries. This supports the idea that flashbulb memories are personally significant and that UK participants had a flashbulb memory for this event.
Schmolck et al’s study (2000) contrasts with Conway et al, They investigated that the events surrounding the announcement of the verdict of O.J Simpson murder trial. 3 days after the verdict they interviewed students, and again after 15 or 32 months. They found that the quality of the recollections 32 months after the event were shockingly different from those 15 months subsequent. 15 months after 50% of the recollections were accurate compared to 29% after 32 months. Additionally 15 months following found that 11% of the data contained major errors and distortions, but those interviewed 32 months after showed 40% were distorted accounts of the event. This alternatively to Conway’s findings shows that flashbulb memories do in fact decay and are not enduringly accurate- if it is accepted that recall for the O.J Simpson trial constitutes a flashbulb memory.
Wright 1993 has an extremely controversial alternative view, claiming that actually flashbulb memories are subject to the same processes as all memories and that there is no special process/ mechanism involved. Wright used interviews, about their recall of events related to the Hillsborough football disaster where 96 Liverpool supporters where crushed to death. After 5 months, people had a vague memory of the event and remembered little. Wright concluded that they had a RECONSTRUCTIVE memory where their memories blend in with others peoples memories and things they have read also.
Another memory process affected by emotion is repression, first proposed by Freud. He stated that repression of the mind automatically banishes traumatic events from the memory to prevent overwhelming anxiety that they might cause, it is a defence mechanism. These mechanisms are placed beyond the conscious awareness into the unconscious mind . This displacement means that the memories are unavailable temporarily however still affect conscious thought, desire and action, even though there is no conscious recollection.
Most psychologists accept the view that repression is common, such as memories of being sexually abused, and for such memories to spontaneously be remembered. The controversy is about ‘repressed memory therapy’ critics claim that therapists are not helping patients remember events but are suggesting and implanting ‘false memories’ of sexual abuse, alien abduction or even sanction rituals. Repression, defined as a way of dealing with memories for traumatic events so that the anxiety created by the memory does not have to be experienced. The memory for the event is placed beyond conscious awareness.
Baddeley (1990) and Williams (1994) conducted studies which they conclude to supports the concept of repression. Baddeley read out a list of words and asked participants to respond by saying the first word that came into their head, this is known as a word association task. Some of the ‘trigger’ words were neutral whereas others were negative and emotional, such as angry and fear. Subsequently participants were asked to recall their own response, they had more difficult recalling the words associated with the negatively charged trigger words. However the findings were different if the there was a longer delay before testing. After 28 days they remembered the emotionally charged words better than the neutrally triggered responses. One explanation for this difference, is that anxiety and arousal depresses short term recall but enhances long term recall. Alternatively it may be that it initially causes repression but this disappears over time study depending on the severity of the repressed memory. Williams study also supports the concept of repression, he showed that a high proportion of women who had been sexually abused as children did not show any recall of the abuse when interviewed 20 years later(which could have been for many reasons not just repression). The study used hospital records (which is unethical anyway) from the emergency rooms of children who had been admitted; details of the abuse were recorded at the time. 16% of those who did recall the abuse claimed that at one time, they had been unable to recall these events however had recovered the memory. It is possible that some of the hospital record accounts of the abuse were fictitious however most of the children were subjected to a physical examination at the time of the initial report, and those rated credible actually showed the highest levels of forgetting. This study has many unethical issues, such as invasion of privacy, anonymity, right to withdraw, lack of informed consent, prevention form physical and psychological harm. These participants may not have forgotten the event they may have been worries that what the said would be publicly displayed as the interviewer had already been through ‘confidential’ hospital records.
Karen and Widener showed that many of the World War 2 veterans who experienced battlefield trauma appeared to repress the memories resulting in mental illness. This was only relieved when the memories were recovered in therapy. In a contrasting perception, a review of 60 years of experimental tests of repression Holmes (1990) concluded that there is no evidence that unequivocally supports the role of repression in forgetting. The syndrome of post traumatic stress disorder shows that verifiable traumatic events , rather than being repressed, actually leave the victim haunted by intrusive memories in which the victim relives the trauma. This leads to the question of whether only some people form flashbulb memories and others repress emotional incidents. Various studies including one where children were interviewed after a sniper had attacked the school, showed that even children not present at the time of the attack still had vivid memories. These ‘false memories are said the be created by accounts of other children’s experiences.
