Flashbulb Memory

Flashbulb memories are first defined as ‘‘detailed, long-lasting, and vivid memories of the personal circumstances in which people first heard about an unexpected, consequential, and emotion-arousing event.’’  (Brown & Kulik, 1977). However, some parts of this statement are still controversial. In this article, some arguable questions of flashbulb literature examined with four different experiment. Tinti et al. (2014) hypothesized and found that flashbulb memory and event memory depends on different determinants and event memory in not a direct causal predictor of flashbulb memory. Their hypothesis was examined by the victory of Italy in the 2006 Football World Cup Championship 18 months later trough 352 participants with questionnaires and open-ended questions as assessment tools. Day and Ross (2014), examined that whether people’s social bond with the target of the news event predicts confidence. The studied event is death of Michael Jackson which can be very important for some people. They used two surveys; one is 3-5 after the death and second one is completed 18 months later. The results show that the degree of social bond has a sizable indirect effect on confidence in flashbulb memories. There were three essential aim of the study ( Demiray & Freund, 2014) which are people’s beliefs about their flashbulb memories, subjective memory qualities and objective recalling of flashbulb memories and finally, participants’ ages and their beliefs about the functions of their flashbulb memories. Also, in order to examine the aims two pilot studies were conducted and there was one main study. The positive correlation was found based on participants’ age and their memories recalling age. Gandolphe and El Haj (2017) examined whether there was a flashbulb memory for Paris attacks that happened on Friday 13 November, and also they investigated the predictors of flashbulb memory. They used online survey and regression analyzes to test this, and the results displayed that individuals remembered the moment they first learned the attacks, which creates flashbulb memory; and they also found the predictors, which are visual imagery and negative emotion.

In the present study, we examined the relation
between memory for a consequential and emotional event
and memory for the circumstances in which people learned
about that event, known as flashbulb memory. We
hypothesized that these two types of memory have different
determinants and that event memory is not necessarily a direct
causal determinant of flashbulb memory. Italian citizens (N =
352) described their memories of Italy’s victory in the 2006
FootballWorld Cup Championship after a delay of 18months.
Structural equation modeling showed that flashbulb memory
and event memory could be clearly differentiated and were
determined by two separate pathways. In the first pathway,
importance predicted emotional intensity, which, in turn,
predicted the frequency of overt and covert rehearsal.
Rehearsal was the only direct determinant of vivid and
detailed flashbulb memories. In the second pathway,
importance predicted rehearsal by media exposure, which
enhanced the accuracy and certainty of event memory. Event
memory was also enhanced by prior knowledge. These results
have important implications for the debate concerning
whether the formation of flashbulb memory and event
memory involve different processes and for understanding
how flashbulb memory can be simultaneously so vivid and
so error-prone.