237
See also: William James 38–45 ■ Jerome Bruner 164–65 ■ Endel Tulving 186–91
■ Frederic Bartlett 335–36 ■ Ulric Neisser 339I
n the late 1970s, Harvard
University professor Roger
Brown co-wrote a paper
called Flashbulb Memories that
became the classic study on a
memory phenomenon. Brown and
his colleague, James Kulik, coined
this term to refer to a special kind
of autobiographical memory in
which people give a highly detailed,
vivid account of the exact moment
that they learned about an event
with a high shock value.
The paper argues that culturally
and personally significant events,
such as the shooting of J.F. Kennedy
or Martin Luther King, trigger the
operation of a special biological
memory mechanism (“now print”)
that creates a permanent record of
the event and the circumstances in
which we first become aware of it.
Almost like a flash photograph, we
can picture where we were, who we
were with, and what we were doing
when we heard the shocking
news—such as the destruction of
the twin towers on 9/11. Brown and
Kulik claim these memories are
vivid, accurate, and enduring.IN CONTEXT
APPROACH
Memory studies
BEFORE
1890 William James makes a
distinction between short-term
(primary) memory and long-
term (secondary) memory.
1932 Frederic Bartlett’s
studies show that recollective
memory is not simply a matter
of retrieval; it is an active
reconstruction of past events.
AFTER
1982 US psychologist Ulric
Neisser argues that flashbulb
memories do not use a special
mechanism and can be
inaccurate due to multiple
“rehearsals” after the event.
1987 In Autobiographical
Memory, American
psychologist David Rubin
suggests that we remember
landmark events that define
us as people.
FLASHBULB
MEMORIES ARE FIRED
BY EVENTS OF HIGH
EMOTIONALITY
ROGER BROWN (1925–1997)
The assassination of President
John F. Kennedy in 1963 was shocking
and culturally significant. Brown
claims these kinds of events cause
the formation of “flashbulb” memories.However, researchers such as Ulric
Neisser have contested the special
mechanism theory, suggesting that
the memories’ durability stems from
the fact that they are thought about
(or rehearsed) repeatedly after the
event, by the individual and the
wider world, and so are continually
reinforced within memory. ■SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY