A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event.
Exceptionally clear memories of emotionally significant events are called flashbulb memories. They’re called so because they are typically very vivid and detailed, much like a photograph, and often pertain to surprising, consequential, and emotionally arousing events. Flashbulb Memories (FM) are autobiographical memories associated with receiving unexpected news of high emotional impact.
Experiences of unpleasant occasions, such as an automobile accident, a mugging, or learning about the death of a loved one, are remembered better than those experiences of a routine day.
The adrenal stress hormones (cortisol), epinephrine (also called adrenaline) and corticosterone (corticosterone is the primary hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex in response to environmental challenges. It plays a crucial role in metabolism, stress, and adaptation) released by emotional arousal regulate the consolidation of long-term memory. The amygdala plays a critical role in mediating these stress hormone influences. The release of norepinephrine in the amygdala (contributing to the mechanisms of emotional memory, as exemplified by memory for fear) and the activation of noradrenergic (which aggravates the stress) receptors are essential for stress hormone-induced memory enhancement.
Numerous studies show that even flash memories are unreliable and subject to change.
In order to examine the reliability of this type of memory, it is necessary to obtain answers immediately after the event itself, and then compare them with answers after a shorter or longer period of time. Such an investigation was carried out by Neisser and Harsch, who immediately after the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger, in 1986, gave a large number of respondents a questionnaire that contained questions related to the event itself, but also to the place where the respondents were at the time they learned about the event, what they were doing at that moment, the time when the accident happened, etc. (Neisser & Harsch, 1992). After almost three years (32 months) Neisser and Harsh managed to get in touch with half of the respondents and gave them the same questionnaire again. Of the 220 items contained in the questionnaire, the respondents gave answers to about 150 that differed from those they gave three years earlier. As many as 25% of respondents gave completely different answers than the original ones, which shows that the reliability of flash memory is far less than it seems to us.
The unreliability of flash memories is also demonstrated by the research of Christianson, who examined the memory of the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. The interrogation took place six weeks and one year after the assassination. The results obtained show that only the general information about the event was reproduced correctly. The details given in the reports were mostly a mixture of commonly known facts that could be found in the daily press and in no way indicated the special status of this type of memory (Christianson, 1989).
Although it seems that flash memories are related to sudden events with a strong emotional charge, research by Winograd and Killinger does not confirm this assumption (Winograd & Killinger, 1983). Examining the students’ memory of events from the 1960s and 1970s, which by their importance certainly belong to the events that could be associated with flash memories, the authors state that the respondents were able to reproduce a large number of details related to events that were sudden and had extraordinary emotional charge (eg the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963). However, no less details were obtained when it came to memories of extraordinary but expected events (e.g. the first man landing on the moon in 1969). Since these events were predictable, the authors conclude that the surprise factor is not a condition for the memory of an event to have the status of a flash memory.