McGaugh and Cahill (1995)

• Aim


  Study flashbulb memories, the role of emotions in making memories.
• Group 2: Emotional story.

  Using the same story slides, Group 2 experienced an emotional story where a boy was involved in a car accident where his feet were severed.
• Group 1: Boring story

  Using the same story slides, Group 1 heard a boring story about a woman and her son, both of whom paid a hospital visit to the son's father where they witnessed a drill for a simulated accident.
• After-viewing 


  Participants were asked how emotional the story was (scale of 1-10). Two weeks after the experiment, the participants came back and was tested for memory of specific details (recognition task).
• Follow-up


  Placebo was used to prevent activation in the amygdala, acting as a control.
• Results


  Participants who heard the emotional story demonstrated better recall. Placebo group did no better than the group who heard the boring story. Hence, the amygdala plays a significant role in making memories linked to emotional arousals.
• Limitation


  Personal engagement with story varies, emotional rating is very subjective, highly artificial (low ecological validity), rcognition task may not be internally valid.
• Strengths


  Cause-effect established due to placebo, easy replication.