Emotion and cognition/flashbulb memory theory

• What is emotion?


  Emotion is an intense mental state that arises subjectively rather than through conscious effort, often accompanied by physiological changes. They are private experiences, and cannot be operationally defined. Emotions are an adaptive survival mechanism
• What are the seven main emotions?


  happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt
• How does empathy happen?

  Mirror neurons fire both when you act and when you observe the same action performed by another
• What is the flashbulb memory theory and who was it first proposed by?

  First proposed by Brown and Kulik (1977), a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid snapshot of a moment when a surprising and emotionally arousing event happened, caused by a neural mechanism, the 'print now mechanism'. They are said to be reliable, but may have errors.
• What do flashbulb memories contain?


  Oh Please Open Inside Another Office

  Ongoing activity

  Place

  Own affect

  Informant

  Aftermath

  Other affect
• What is the amygdala's role?


  when an event is emotionally arousing, the amygdala, a part of the limbic system, is activated. This leads to the memory being encoded deeper, as the main job of the amygdala is to regulate emotions, and memory consolidation in which new learning is transferred into long-term memory, and storage is influenced by stress hormones. It facilitates encoding memories at a deeper level when the event is emotionally arousing.
• What was the aim of Brown and Kulik (1977)'s study?


  Their aim was to investigate flashbulb memories.
• What was Brown and Kulik (1977)'s procedure?


  80 American participants were selected- half African American and the other half Caucasian. Participants were given a questionnaire about ten events, e.g. the assassination of JFK, and one event of close personal relevance involving a degree of shock. For each person-related event, participants were asked 'do you recall the circumstances in which you first heard that...'. If a participant answered yes to that question, they would be asked to write a free recall of the circumstances.
• What were Brown and Kulik (1977)'s findings?


  The findings showed that 90% of the participants had formed flashbulb memories for the assassination of JFK, and more African Americans formed flashbulb memories for the death of MLK. The main contributing factors to the formation of a flashbulb memory were high levels of surprise and high levels of emotional arousal.
• What was Brown and Kulik (1977)'s conclusion?


  They concluded that people are able to form flashbulb memories and that they will remember more details about an event if it has more personal significance.
• What are some strengths of Brown and Kulik (1977)'s study?


  The conclusions were supported by Conway (1994) as over 86% of UK citizens had flashbulb memories one year after Margret Thatcher's resignation

  The study was cross-cultural so may be generalised more accurately
• What are some weaknesses of Brown and Kulik (1977)'s study?


  Flashbulb memories may be due to overt rehearsal (via the media) rather than emotion, the study has high bidirectional ambiguity
• What was Sharot (2007)'s aim?


  Her aim was to investigate the potential role of biological factors on flashbulb memories
• What was Sharot (2007)'s procedure?


  A quasi experiment was conducted three years after 9/11. 24 participants who were in NYC that day had their brain activity observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The participants were presented with word cues on a screen while they were in the scanner. The word 'summer' or 'September' was projecting alongside the words, in order to have the participants link the word to 9/11.

  After the scan, participants were asked to rate their memories in terms of detail, vividness, confidence in accuracy, and arousal. They were also asked to write down their personal memories.
• What were Sharot (2007)'s findings?


  Only half of the participants reported flashbulb memories- greater sense of detail and strong confidence in accuracy of the memory. Those that did report having flashbulb memories said that they were closer to the attack on the day. they also included more specific details within their written memories. The activation of the amygdala for the participants closer to the attach was higher when they recalled the attack than when they recalled memories from the previous summer. those that were further away from the event had equal levels of response in the amygdala when recalling both events.
• What was Sharot (2007)'s conclusion?


  The strength of amygdala activation at retrieval was shown to correlate with flashbulb memories. This suggests that close personal experience may be critical in in engaging the neural mechanisms that produce flashbulb memories.
• What are some strengths of Sharot (2007)'s study?


  The study was supported by McGaugh and Cahill (1997), where researchers found results that correlated to Sharot's.
• What are some weaknesses of Sharot (2007)'s study?


  It does not explain why some people have flashbulb memories after seeing an event online.

  The setting of the experiment is artificial and low in ecological validity

  Demand characteristics may be present, lowering internal validity

  The sample size is culturally biased and therefore not fully generalisable
• What was Kulkofsky (2011)'s aim?


  His aim was to investigate if flashbulb memories are found across all cultures.
• What was Kulkofsky (2011)'s procedure?


  Five countries- China, Germany, Turkey, the UK and the USA- were studied to see if there was any difference in the rate of flashbulb memories in collectivistic and individualistic cultures. The sample was 274 middle class adults from all five countries, and they were given five minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events during their lifetime, at least one year ago. The events recalled by the participants were compiled into a questionnaire. They were asked five questions about how they learned about the event:

  Where were you when you first learned about the event?

  What time of day was it?

  How did you learn about it?

  What were you doing at the time that you learned about it?

  Whom were you with?

  And some questions about the importance of the event to them personally:

  How nationally or internationally important was the event?

  How personally important was the event?

  How surprising was the event?

  How surprising was the event?

  How many times have you talked about the event since it happened?

  The questionnaire and instructions were translated into the official language of each of the countries involved in the study by bilingual research assistants. After the questionnaires were completed, a native speaker of that language would translate them back to English, eliminating translation as an extraneous variable.
• What were Kulkofsky (2011)'s findings?

  In a collectivist culture, such as China, Personal importance and Intensity of emotion did not have a big role in predicting flashbulb memories, compared to individualistic cultures that place higher importance on the individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences. More FBMs were reported in individualistic than collectivistic cultures. National importance was equally linked to the development of flashbulb memories in all cultures.
• What was Kulkofsky (2011)'s conclusion?


  They concluded that culture does affect cognition, and cultural dimensions such as collectivism and individualism influence memory. In cultures where focusing on own experiences is de-emphasised, there would be less rehearsal of the triggering event and therefore less development of flashbulb memories.
• What are some strengths of Kulkofsky (2011)'s study?


  Interviewer effects were avoided due to the questionaries being administered in the participant's native languages. The participants would also be more likely to recall events in their native languages

  It was ensured that translation was not an extraneous variable
• What are some weaknesses of Kulkofsky (2011)'s study?


  Low ecological validity- the participants may not be representative of the target population

  It was an etic approach and is possible that cultural factors may have effected how data was self-reported
• What was Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s aim?


  Their aim was to test the theory of flashbulb theory by investigating the extent to which memory for a shocking event (the challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period of time.
• What was Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s procedure?


  On January 28, 1986, the shuttle orbiter, Challenger, broke up 73 seconds after lift off, bringing an end to its 10th mission. All seven astronauts aboard died, and this disaster received extensive media coverage and prompted NASA to temporarily suspend all shuttle missions.

  Less than 24 hours after the disaster, 106 psychology students were given a questionnaire and asked to write a description of how they had heard the news. They also had to answer questions on what they were doing, where they were, etc and what emotional feelings they discovered at the time of the event.

  After two and a half years, 44 of the same students were asked to complete the same questionnaire again. they were also asked to rate their confidence on the accuracy of their memory on a scale of 1 to 5, and if they had filled out a questionnaire on that specific subject before.
• What were Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s findings?


  On average, participants only answered 2.95 out of 7 questions correctly, but were very confident on the accuracy of their memory- 83%. Participants were surprised to see differences in their answers for both questionnaires. When asked to explain the differences, they couldn't.
• What was Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s conclusion?


  They concluded that emotional intensity was associated with greater memory confidence, but not accuracy. Although flashbulb memories are vivid and long-lasting, they are not reliable. It is possible that post-event information is the reason for its inaccuracy. The inaccuracy may also be due to storytelling schemas.
• What are some strengths of Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s study?


  High in ecological validity as they used a real event

  they were tested shortly after the event -24 hours
• What are some weaknesses of Neisser and Harsch (1992)'s study?


  low in temporal validity

  used a student sample

  Only 44 of the original sample were in the second part of the test- which means the sample was subject to participant variability

  The findings were based on unreliable self-report data
• What was Talarico (2017)'s aim?


  The aim was to investigate whether the source of news (traditional media, social media or another person) shapes how people remember learning about emotional events.
• What was Talarico (2017)'s procedure?


  329 participants were asked through an online questionnaire how they heard of Osama bin Laden's assassination immediately after the event, 7, 42,224, or 365 days later. The researchers compared the memories of those who learned about the assassination through television, social media, or another person.
• What were Talarico (2017)'s findings?


  Immediately after the vent, television exposure was strongest in both accurateness and vividness of the memory. For accuracy, personal communication was the weakest, and for vividness, social media was the weakest. When examining the consistency of flashbulb memories over time, the source of news did not make a difference.
• What was Talarico (2017)'s conclusion?


  Memories are more credible immediately depending on the source of news.
• What are some strengths of Talarico (2017)'s study?


  High in temporal validity

  The responses were reviewed by two independent researchers that were blind to the hypothesis-reducing researchers bias

  Supported by Schaefer et al, who found that information first learned through media was more reliable and detailed, and being exposed to emotional information via digital media does enhance the reliability and depth of information
• What are some weaknesses of Talarico (2017)'s study?


  May be subject to sampling bias
• What are some strengths of flashbulb memory theory?


  Explains why emotional memories are more vividly remembered

  many research studies have been conducted to support this theory

  Neural networks are involved, supporting the theory
• What are some weaknesses of flashbulb memory theory?


  Cannot explain why flashbulb memories are no more accurate than other memories

  Hard to confirm the accuracy of a flashbulb memory years after the event

  Difficult to test and control because emotions are subjective