Flashbulb memory

Brown and Kulik (1977) asked 80 American participants (40 white and 40 black) to answer questions about 10 events. Nine of the events were mostly assassinations or attempted assassinations of well-known American personalities (e.g. J.F.K, Martin Luther King). The tenth was a self-selected event of personal relevance and involving unexpected shock e.g. death of a friend or a serious accident. Participants were asked to recall the circumstances they found themselves in when they first heard the news about the 10 events. They were also asked to indicate how often they had rehearsed the information. These events were expected to cause FBMs. The assassination of J.F.K in 1963 led to the highest number of FBMs with 90% of the participants recalling its reception context in vivid detail. African Americans reported more FBMs for leaders of civil rights movements (e.g. assassination of MLK) than Caucasian Americans. Most participants recalled a personal FBM which tended to be related to learning about the death of a parent  

Findings from this study are clearly consistent with Brown and Kulik’s theory. Additional support comes from a study by Conway et al. (1994). These researchers used both UK and non-UK citizens to study FBMs caused by the unexpected resignation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990. There were several data collection points in this study including a few days after the resignation and after 11 months. Conway et al. found that 85.6% of UK citizens, and considerably fewer non-UK citizens, had a flashbulb memory after 11 months.

So what can we conclude about Brown and Kulik’s theory? Williams et al. (2008) conclude their discussion of FBM by noting that Brown and Kulik identified two important determinants of FBMs: event importance and event emotionality. The third factor, surprise, is not so well supported by relevant research. Some of the properties Brown and Kulik ascribe to FBMs, like permanence and consistency, are disputed, whereas others, like confidence and vividness, are better supported by relevant research. The claim that has fared least well is their assumption that flashbulb memory is a special memory system based on a dedicated neural mechanism. Few nowadays would accept this aspect of Brown and Kulik’s theory. What is certain, though, is that their pioneering work has generated a lot of research about the relation between emotion and cognition.