Critically review the research and theories in one area of everyday memory

The study of flashbulb memories is a prime example of the problems faced in everyday memory investigations. These memories are not experienced everyday of our lives, but are without doubt a phenomenon that each of has experienced in our lifetime. As shall be discussed later, problems arise due to the fact that flashbulb memories are characterised by extreme emotional, personal and surprise situations (Brown & Kulik,1977). By their nature these memories refer to specific contextual conditions that would be hard to replicate in a laboratory. Therefore flashbulb memory researchers have had to find techniques beyond the laboratory, due to the desire not to sacrifice essential “ecological validity” (Neisser, 1978) to gain more empirical control.

One of the main questions concerning flashbulb memories is their relationship to other types of memory. There are many proposed divisions and sub-divisions of human memory, such as working memory, procedural memory, semantic memory or episodic memory. Each of these systems are functionally related to the maintenance of what is essentially human life. One of the many functions is what Tulving (1983) called “Mental time travel”, the ability to experience past events. Such autobiographical memories are thought to be structured at different levels of temporal and spatial specificity that together are used as reference for the construction of “self”. This mental time travel can take place through different hierarchic levels of autobiographical organisation. The hierarchy level can be as general as university experiences or as specific as remembering the topic of conversation with a certain person on a certain day (Cohen, 1998). Autobiographical memories are therefore seen as being autonoetic in that they carry information about the context in which they were experienced. Flashbulb memories carry such autonoetic information, but are believed to critically different.

Brown & Kulik (1977), introduced the term flashbulb memory to describe memories that are preserved in an almost indiscriminate way. They postulated that these flashbulb memories were indeed different from ordinary memories, with some defining characteristics. Although these memories are thought to be photographic in their clarity and detail, they do not preserve all features of an event. Conversely Brown & Kulik proposed that idiosyncratic event details are remembered. These details help form what has been described as a “live” memory in that the “reception field” is remembered including ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘who with’ factors of an event. One example of an extreme form of contextual specific memory is the death of Princess Diana. Many people especially the media ask a common question such as “what were you doing when you heard the news”. Many people claim to be able to remember such major moments with unusual clarity and vividness, as if the events were etched on their minds throughout their lives. Brown & Kulik (1977) studied memories for important events such as the death of John F Kennedy. They found that irrelevant details were often recalled and it appeared that they had retained “a brief moment of time associated with an emotional event” (Smyth et al, 1994). Brown & Kulik suggested that flashbulb memories are formed by the activity of an ancient brain mechanism evolved to capture emotional and cognitive information relevant to the survival of an individual or group.

To summarise, flashbulb memories FMs are thought to be an unique survival mechanism distinct from other form of memory in their clarity, longevity and attention to idiosyncratic detail. These characteristics of flashbulb memories can be mapped onto issues concerning memory. As with many memory systems, the argument over the distinctiveness of flashbulb memories involves encoding, storage and retrieval. These issues relate to many issues within Flashbulb memory such as their formation, accuracy, consistency and longevity. It appears that these processes are interrelated with each process being dependent on another.

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In terms of FM formation, Brown & Kulik (1977) thought that the clarity and detail of FMs is correlated with the emotion, surprise and personal consequentially of the event. They also thought that surprise initiates FM formation, while personal consequentially determines the elaborateness of the resulting FM. As support for this they found that more blacks had FMs associated with the death of Martin Luther King compared to whites (Ibid.). Apparently this was due to an increased emotional personal consequentially felt in their part of society. Therefore self referring prior knowledge of surprising important events is thought to support privileged encoding of FMs compared to other mundane memories. In support for this Livingstone (1967) proposed that when an event passes a certain biological criterion, the limbic system discharges into the reticular system, which further discharges throughout the cortical hemispheres. This firing above a certain level has been termed the “now print” mechanism. This system can be seen as being rather like the flash going off on a camera. However this view is criticised on the grounds that this “biological level” is not specifically identified.

In a further criticism Neisser (1982) has claimed that FMs are not specially encoded and therefore not unique. Neisser proposed that FMs were simply ordinary memories made clearer and longer lasting by frequent rehearsal after the event. This argument seems quite logical, as particularly in this global age the media and society frequently replay and retell events of extreme public attention or emotion. Flashbulb memories could therefore be seen as memories that have be actively reconstructed to such an extent that they can be clearly replayed in our minds. Flashbulb memories are seen by Neisser not as a special evolutionary mechanism, but as a method of promoting the integration of an individual within a society. In this reconstruction, personal consequentially is applied after an event once its importance is measured within society.

This also questions the validity and accuracy of “flashbulb memories” in that they are memories actively reconstructed and transformed over time. Neisser & Harsch (1992) measured flashbulb memories of the shuttle challenger explosion. They found that after one day 9 subjects claimed to have learned of the event from television, however 34 months later this figure had risen to 19. As a further nail in the coffin for Brown and Kulik's flashbulb memory hypothesis Christianson & Loftus (1987) found that high emotion served to narrow attention to focus to the central aspects of an event a the expense of peripheral details. This would seem to indicate that the idiosyncratic details associated with flashbulb memories are more reconstructive, as the periphery surrounding an event is filled in on rehearsal.

At this point it may appear that flashbulb memories are little more than a cultural phenomenon involving an enhancement of ordinary memories and therefore not different from them. McCloskey et al (1988) have pointed out that ordinary memories can be accurate and long lasting due to frequent rehearsal. FMs are therefore may be ordinary memories retained to some unusually high standard of clarity.

However there has been a considerable backlash in support of uniqueness of flashbulb memories. Various researchers have pointed to the fact that personal consequentially was not measured within either the Challenger or other such studies. As already demonstrated by Brown and Kulik (1977), emotional consequentially is a dominant factor in the formation of FMs as seen in their comparison of FMs for Malcom X between blacks and whites. In a similar study, Conway et al (1994) measured FMs of the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. Conway took measures immediately and around 9 months. Conway found that over 86% of British subjects had complete and accurate memories fitting the description of FMs. Conversely only 29% of non-British subjects had ‘FM’ memories. In a comparison of three studies of important news events including his own Thatcher resignation study and a San Francisco earthquake study (Neisser, Winograd, and Weldon, 1991), Conway (1995) concluded that FMs may be mediated by importance and/or emotion, but not rehearsal. Conway used these studies as support for the idea that encoding is special for flashbulb memories and that they are not purely the production of elaborate rehearsal.

Rehearsal is thought to serve different functions for different memories. Smyth et al (1994) noted that some memories successfully remain with us accurately for many years. They furthered that these extended memories could be distinguished between memories that have used over a period of time and emotionally charged flashbulb memories. Conway (1995) suggests that rehearsal may serve to prevent these ordinary memories from decaying while rehearsal within flashbulb memories acts to elaborate. It may be that ordinary memories require preventative rehearsal due to their instability. Conway (1995) believed that most autobiographical memories are unstable and dynamic requiring effortfull maintenance. Conway & Anderson (1993) believe that ordinary memories are constructed from different types of autobiographical knowledge and not directly accessed as in a “memory unit”. Flashbulb memories however are believed to represent tightly organised and dense autobiographical knowledge.

FMs are therefore thought to be different to ordinary memories in their specificity of knowledge and organisation within the brain. This may explain their durability and accuracy and therefore distinction from other forms of memory. FMs can be seen to be independent of rehearsal as shown in emotional non-public events. Christianson and Nilson (1989) cite the unfortunate case of a rape victim who developed subsequent amnesia. When jogging in a familiar environment a year later, a sudden clear flashback occurred. However such traumatic events may not be so indelible as Wagenaar has shown in the inaccurate long term accounts of concentration camp survivors. Memories appear to be mixed and confused concerning their fellow prisoners and German guards. However caution must be drawn when using multiple event traumas as they can be more fragmented than single events (Terr, 1991).

Conway, (1994) has used neuropsychological evidence to show that FMs may have a different coding system to other forms of memory. Bliss and Lomo (1992) worked on a long term poteniation (LTP) theory of consolidation from short term to long term memory. LTP involves the firing of pre and postsynaptic neuronal cells as critical factors in the possible neuronal plasticity of memory systems. LTP has been found in areas of the Hippocampus and Amygdala.

The Hippocampus is believed to mediate the construction of temporary outline memories, while the Amygdala is thought to be critical for the formation of emotionally toned memories (McGaugh, 1992). Adrenaline associated with emotive events is thought to release glucose past the blood brain barrier, which is thought to be responsible for increased firing within the Hippocampus and Amygdala (Ibid.). However as FMs involve more than just emotion, other brain structures are thought to be activated in this way. As the frontal lobes are reciprocally related to many areas of the cortex and the Amygdala, as well as being involved with episodic and working memory (Stuss et al, 2001)it is plausible that this area will reveal much of FM function in the near future.

Conway, (1990) argued that the distinction of FMs and Autobiographical memory is the reconstructive quality of ordinary memories. However studies of patients in intensive care units have shown unpleasant emotions coupled with drugs enhances memory for internal events such as hypnogogic hallucinations (Jones, Griffiths & Humphris, 2000). Attention shifts during these events from internal to the external. Patients show poor memory for their environment, but vivid memories for hallucinations and nightmares. The fact that these memories were constructed internally may weaken Conway’s (1990) idea that FMs are not mere elaborate reconstructions of past events. However, the fact that the idiosyncratic or contextual details were not remembered may rule these memories out as being classed as flashbulb memories.

It seems that FMs have been applied to so many extreme memory phenomenon that they can be considered to be part of a “broad family of experiences” that include drug flashbacks, palinopsia, palinacusis, post-traumatic memories and memories recurring from mental disorders Mauricio and German (1999). However, as the longevity and accuracy of memories involved with post-traumatic stress disorder have been questioned (Baddeley, 1997) one could also question the validity of FMs and therefore their uniqueness. In balancing this argument, Winnington, Hyman and Dinnel (2000) suggest that the definition of what constitutes a FM may have been lost over the debates. They state that Brown and Kulik’s (1977) original definition should be re-addressed to ensure that flashbulb memory researchers are indeed investigating the same entity. They suggest that not all past research into flashbulb memories may not have strictly adhered to the ‘emotion, surprise and personal consequentially definition of Brown and Kulik. However one may further that this definition itself is open to question and debate.

The arguments forming the theories of FMs are thus both productive and engaging, however some of the debates may be limited by the research methods used. Winnington, Hyman and Dinnel (2000) found that the initial indexing of an event influences the apparent consistency of the memory for the event. In most FM studies, subjects experiences of the event of indexed to get the full description of the experience and then tested at a later date. Winnington, Hyman and Dinnel (2000) wrote “it appears that the time of initial testing needs to be considered when conducting flashbulb memory studies” (pp. 214). It was found that those indexed later had subsequently better recall of the OJ Simpson trial. They suggest that those questioned earlier will be able to describe more and therefore have more to remember when it comes to the recall situation. Another idea is that additional information is given after the event, making the immediate period following an event turbulent in terms of contrasting information. In this way those indexed later may have “settled” their memories compared to those just after the event. Brewer (1992) suggests the “wrong slice” hypothesis as people may talked about the event in a number of different places, but been indexed only one of these, subsequent recall may have referred to another correct but un-indexed place of discovery of important news.

Winnington, Hyman and Dinnel (2000) conclude that researchers should try to obtain an indexing of events as soon as possible. They write “After an event, a memory may be gradually consolidate as people forget some information, incorporate some information from other sources, and develop a narrative of the event” (pp. 215). In conclusion, it seems that FMs are indeed an interesting phenomenon. FMs do seem to reflect memories that are generally more vivid, reliable, accessible and more important than other memories. The distinctiveness of FMs does seem to be a bit of a grey area. One interpretation is that there is more of a qualitative difference rather than quantitative with FMs and other memories.

The research into FMs is an excellent example of everyday memory being investigated outside of the laboratory. The issues of control and ecological validity are still significant constraints on the research. However this research certainly doesn’t appear to be “bankrupt” (Banaji & Crowder, 1989) and has produced many new productive and challenging theories to research into memory. With neurological findings and new brain imaging techniques complimenting FM research, the area is producing many controlled and ecologically valid research findings that complement and challenge laboratory based memory research.

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