research paper on flashbulb memory

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• > Affect and Accuracy in Recall
• > The theoretical and empirical status of the flashbulb memory hypothesis

Book contents

• Frontmatter
• List of contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Empirical studies
• Part II Developmental studies
• Part III Emotion and memory
• Part IV Theoretical issues
• 11 Special versus ordinary memory mechanisms in the genesis of flashbulb memories
• 12 Remembering personal circumstances: A functional analysis
• 13 Constraints on memory
• 14 The theoretical and empirical status of the flashbulb memory hypothesis
• Author index
• Subject index

14 - The theoretical and empirical status of the flashbulb memory hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2010

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the concept of “flashbulb” memory and contrast it with other forms of human memory. The construct of flashbulb memory was introduced in a seminal paper by Brown and Kulik (1977) to account for memories of events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Brown and Kulik described flashbulb memories as memories for the circumstances of hearing about a highly surprising and consequential event. These memories were said to be like a photograph, to show very little forgetting, and to be produced by a special purpose biological mechanism. Most recent work on this topic derives from the Brown and Kulik paper, and this chapter will begin with a conceptual analysis of that paper. The analysis will examine, in turn, each of the major theoretical and empirical claims of the original Brown and Kulik paper.

Brown and Kulik – theory

Circumstances (news reception context)

The core phenomenon described by Brown and Kulik (1977) is that certain events give rise to memories that show little forgetting. These flashbulb memories include both the central event and the circumstances in which one learned of the event.

Mental imagery

It appears to me that Brown and Kulik believe that the recollection of flashbulb memories involves the occurrence of visual images. Brown and Kulik do not state this explicitly, but it is the only interpretation I can give to their statement that flashbulb memories have a “primary, ‘live’ quality that is almost perceptual” (p. 74).

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• The theoretical and empirical status of the flashbulb memory hypothesis
• By William F. Brewer
• Edited by Eugene Winograd , Emory University, Atlanta , Ulric Neisser , Emory University, Atlanta
• Book: Affect and Accuracy in Recall
• Online publication: 22 March 2010
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511664069.015

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• Neuroscience
• Association Learning

Flashbulb memories and the underlying mechanisms of their formation: Toward an emotional-integrative model

• Memory & Cognition 26(3):516-531
• 26(3):516-531

• Utrecht University

• Université Catholique de Louvain - UCLouvain

• Aix-Marseille Université

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Source Memory in the Real World: A Neuropsychological Study of Flashbulb Memory

Patrick s. r. davidson.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

SHAUN P. COOK

Elizabeth l. glisky, mieke verfaellie.

2 Memory Disorders Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston VA Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

STEVEN Z. RAPCSAK

3 Department of Neurology, University of Arizona, and Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System, Tucson, AZ, USA

A flashbulb memory (FM) is a vivid, enduring memory for how one learned about a surprising, shocking event. It thus involves memory for the source of event information, as opposed to memory for the event itself. Which brain regions are involved in FM, however, is uncertain. Although medial temporal lobe/diencephalic (MTL/D) damage impairs content or item memory, frontal lobe (FL) damage has been associated with impaired source memory. One would therefore expect that FM should depend on the FLs, although two recent reports do not support this idea. In the current study, we examined memory for the events of September 11th, and memory for the source of that information, in MTL/D patients, FL patients, and healthy subjects. Only the MTL/D patients were impaired in long-term memory for the event itself, measured after a 6 month retention interval. The FL patients, on the other hand, showed a selective deficit in source memory, although their memory for the target event was unimpaired. MTL/D and FL structures appear to play different roles in memory for flashbulb events.

People often report vivid, long-lasting recollections of the circumstances in which they learned shocking, emotionally-arousing news. Examples of such cases, termed flashbulb memories (FMs; Brown & Kulik, 1977 ; for reviews, see Conway, 1995 ; Winograd & Neisser, 1992 ), include the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. FMs appear to be more accurate and more consistent than memories for less emotional events that occurred around the same time, although FMs are still subject to forgetting and distortion over the long term (e.g., Christianson, 1989 ; Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ; Schmolck, Buffalo, & Squire, 2000 ). Cases of FM are of interest to neuropsychologists for at least two reasons. First, whereas much research has focused on memory for the content of an event, FMs concern memory for the source of news about that event, and these two aspects of memory may be dissociable. Second, memories for emotional events may depend on somewhat different brain mechanisms than memories for non-emotional events. Neuropsychological studies of FM are rare, however — only a few exist, as far as we know ( Budson et al., 2004 ; Candel, Jelicic, Merckelbach, & Wester, 2003 ; Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Kapur, Abbott, Graham, & Simons, 2000 ), and so the brain regions associated specifically with FMs remain uncertain. Here we describe how lesions to the medial temporal lobe/diencephalon (MTL/D) or to the frontal lobe (FL) — two brain regions thought to play major roles in memory — may influence memory for an emotionally arousing public event, and memory for how news about that event was acquired.

Item versus Source Memory

Most memory studies emphasize people’s ability to report the content of an experience, including items encountered in the past, such as pictures, words, or facts (often referred to as the target event). FM research, however, is less concerned with memory for the content than with memory for the context in which the items were encountered, or the source of the information (often referred to as the reception event; Brewer, 1992 ). That is, a flash-bulb memory is by definition a type of source memory — in both cases participants must recollect when, where, and/or from whom they learned information. Thus, flashbulb memories may be supported by brain regions similar to those involved in source memory.

Item and source memory appear to be differentially dependent on MTL/D and FL structures. Memory for content or items is usually significantly impaired by MTL/D lesions, but is often much less affected by FL damage. In contrast, memory for source appears to be less affected by MTL/D lesions, but more dependent on the FLs. For example, several investigators have taught facts (e.g., “Bob Hope’s father was a fireman”; Schacter, Harbluk, & McLachlan, 1984 ) to MTL/D and FL patients, and later asked patients to report both the new facts, and the circumstances in which they learned them. The MTL/D patients had difficulty remembering the new items, whereas the FL patients had no problem doing so. In contrast, usually the MTL/D patients were not disproportionately impaired in source memory, whereas the FL patients were (e.g., Janowsky, Shimamura, & Squire, 1989a ; Johnson, O’Connor, & Cantor, 1997 ; Milner, Corsi, & Leonard, 1991 ; Schacter et al., 1984 ; Shimamura & Squire, 1987 , 1991 ; Shimamura, Janowsky, & Squire, 1990 ; but see Schwerdt & Dopkins, 2001 ; and Thaiss & Petrides, 2003 ). 1 Moreover, source memory was often uncorrelated with neuropsychological measures of MTL/D function, but was instead predicted by measures of FL function (e.g., Glisky, Polster, & Routhieaux, 1995 ; Glisky, Rubin, & Davidson, 2001 ; Schacter et al., 1984 ; Shimamura & Squire, 1987 ; Simons et al., 2002 ).

Although frontal lobe pathology usually impairs source memory, there are two reports suggesting that this may not be the case in emotional situations. First, Kapur et al. (2000) asked patients with FL damage how they learned of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. They appeared to have normal flashbulb memories, which was inconsistent with the aforementioned literature on FL damage impairing memory for source. Second, Davidson and Glisky (2002) asked older adults how they learned of the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. They found no relation between flashbulb memory and FL function in the older adults, which again was contrary to the usually strong positive correlation found between source memory and FL function (e.g., Glisky et al., 1995 ; 2001 ). Together, these two studies ( Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Kapur et al., 2000 ) suggest that FMs, perhaps because of their emotionality, comprise a special case of source memory, and may be less affected by FL pathology.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, provided us the opportunity to study further the neuropsychology of FM. That morning, four American passenger jets were hijacked. Two of the planes flew into and destroyed New York City’s World Trade Center, the third crashed into the Pentagon building in Virginia, and the fourth crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. In total, approximately 3,000 people ( http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center ) were killed. Soon after September 11th, we tested patients with MTL/D damage, patients with FL damage, and healthy people. Participants completed a questionnaire containing specific questions about what happened that day (the target event), and how they learned about it (the reception event). We then retested patients after approximately six months, to examine their long term retention. We had two main hypotheses, based on the literature outlined above. First, we predicted that memory for facts about the target event (namely, the September 11th terrorist attacks) would be reliably impaired in the MTL/D patients but not in the FL patients. Second, we expected memory for the reception event (that is, the source of information about the terrorist attacks) to be retained in the MTL/D patients to the extent that they were able to recall the target event itself. We were uncertain whether the FL patients would be impaired in FM, as they are in most source memory studies in the laboratory, or would show normal FM as did the patients in the Kapur et al. (2000) study and the older adults with reduced FL function in our previous study ( Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ).

Participants

We recruited 45 adults, who were divided into three groups: 14 patients with MTL/D lesions, 13 patients with FL lesions, and a comparison group of 18 healthy subjects. Of these participants, scores from 2 MTL/D patients, 1 FL patient, and 3 healthy subjects were omitted because they were unavailable for retention testing. Tables 1 and ​ and2 2 show lesion, demographic, and psychometric information for the 24 patients; in the majority, structural damage was indicated by computerized tomography (CT) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Lesion, demographic, and psychometric data for the MTL/D patients

Age and Education in Years. VIQ = Verbal Intelligence Quotient from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - III ( Wechsler, 1997 ) or the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (1999) ; GM = General Memory index, WM = Working Memory index, from the Wechsler Memory Scale - III (1997) ; WCST = Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ( Heaton, 1981 ), Cat = Categories, PE = Perseverative Errors; FAS = Controlled Oral Word Association Test ( Spreen & Benton, 1977 ); Trails B = Trailmaking test, Part B, in seconds ( Lezak, 1995 ).

Lesion, demographic, and psychometric data for the FL patients

VM = ventromedial, DL = dorsolateral, AcoA = Anterior Communicating Artery. Age and Education in Years. VIQ = Verbal Intelligence Quotient from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - III ( Wechsler, 1997 ) or the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (1999) ; GM = General Memory index from the Wechsler Memory Scale - III ( WMS-III, 1997 ) or Delayed Recall index from the Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised (1987) ; WM = Working Memory index from the WMS-III; WCST = Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ( Heaton, 1981 ), Cat. = Categories, PE = Perseverative Errors; FAS = Controlled Oral Word Association Test ( Spreen & Benton, 1977 ); Trails B = Trailmaking test, Part B, in seconds ( Lezak, 1995 ).

The 12 MTL/D patients had a mean age of 66 years (range = 44 to 84), and a mean of 15 years of education (see Table 1 ). Four of the five patients with memory impairments attributed to anoxia had bilateral damage to the hippocampus and related medial temporal lobe structures. Only cerebral and cerebellar atrophy was visible on the scan of the fifth anoxic patient, but it seems reasonable to assume, based on the previous literature, that he had at least some damage to the hippocampus (Bachevalier & Mevnier, 1996; Squire & Zola, 1996 ). The two patients with encephalitis had bilateral damage to the hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe areas. In one of these patients, there was also evidence of left frontal lobe involvement. The only patient with memory impairment due to stroke had sustained bilateral damage to the anterior thalamus. We also included in this group four patients with Korsakoff’s disease, which is associated with damage to the diencephalon, including the mammillary bodies and thalamus ( Colchester et al., 2001 ; Shimamura, Jernigan, & Squire, 1988 ; Squire, Amaral, & Press, 1990 ). Some degree of cerebral and cerebellar atrophy was also present in these cases. Because there were no significant differences between the Korsakoff’s patients and the other MTL/D patients on any of the dependent measures of memory, we included them in the same group. However, all analyses involving the MTL/D group were performed both with and without the Korsakoff patients. All but one of the MTL/D patients (TR) were members of the Memory Disorders Research Center’s participant pool and were tested in Boston, and the rest of the participants were tested in Tucson. On clinical tests, the MTL/D patients showed normal verbal intelligence ( M = 104) on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - III (WAIS -III; Wechsler, 1997 ) or the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence ( WASI, 1999 ), although two of the patients (CW and JM) showed slightly depressed IQ scores (approximately 1 standard deviation below the mean). The MTL/D patients had impaired memory scores ( M = 58) on the General Memory index from the Wechsler Memory Scale - III ( WMS-III; 1997 ).

The 12 FL patients had a mean age of 59 years (range = 40 to 77), and a mean of 14 years of education (see Table 2 ). Their lesions were due to anterior communicating artery aneurysm rupture ( n = 4), brain tumor ( n = 3), head trauma ( n = 3), and stroke ( n = 2). Four patients had left hemisphere lesions, four had right hemisphere lesions, and four had bilateral lesions. In four patients there was also neuroradiological evidence of extra-frontal damage ( Table 2 ). Because patients with AcoA lesions may also have basal forebrain damage and, as a result, impairments on the general memory index, analyses involving the FL group were performed both with and without the AcoA patients. The four FL patients with AcoA damage did show memory impairments in clinical testing, but none of the other FL patients appeared to have substantial memory impairments (see Table 2 ). 2 The FL patients showed normal verbal intelligence ( M = 104 on the WAIS -III, 1997; or WASI, 1999 ).

When we compared the two patient groups on the neuropsychological measures listed in Tables 1 and 2, independent samples t tests revealed that they were similar in Verbal IQ, but the MTL/D patient group showed significantly worse memory than the FL group, t (18) = 3.44, p = .003. We also administered tests of frontal lobe/executive function —the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ( Heaton, 1981 ; Spreen & Strauss, 1998 ), verbal fluency ( Spreen & Benton, 1977 ; Spreen & Strauss, 1998 ), and the Trailmaking test ( Lezak, 1995 ; Spreen & Strauss, 1998 ) to as many patients as possible. On only one of these tasks did the two patients groups differ reliably: the MTL/D group ( M = 105 s) took marginally less time than the FL group ( M = 177 s) to complete Part B of the Trailmaking test, t (18) = 1.77, p = .09.

The 15 healthy subjects had a mean age of 58 years (range = 37 to 78), and a mean of 14 years of education. Between-subjects analyses of variance (ANOVAs) revealed that the three groups were equivalent in age and education ( F s < 1.34).

The FM questionnaire included specific questions about the target event (i.e., information about September 11th), and the reception event (i.e., the source of news about September 11th). In each case we asked participants to answer in as much detail as possible, and at the end of each section of the questionnaire we asked them to include anything that they had omitted in earlier answers or that we had not asked about.

Memory for the target event was assessed using five questions common to the FM literature ( Brown & Kulik, 1977 ; Cohen, Conway, & Maylor, 1994 ; Conway et al., 1994 ; Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ), involving place (i.e., “where did the event occur?”), what occurred before the event, what occurred after the event, people involved, and time of day. Memory for the reception event was measured using five questions analogous to those above (e.g., “where were you when you heard the news?”, “what did you do after you heard the news?”), plus an additional question about the source of the news (i.e., “how did you hear the news, i.e., from what source?”).

Between 3 and 30 days after September 11th, we interviewed the healthy subjects and all but one FL patient (patient JS, who was tested approximately 90 days later) by telephone, and tested the remaining patients in person. The procedure was similar for all participants: We read questions to them one at a time, encouraged them to answer in as much detail as they could, and recorded responses as close to verbatim as possible. After the initial test, we did not warn participants about the retention test, which was conducted approximately six months later. On the retention test, we again interviewed the healthy subjects and all but one FL patient by telephone, and tested the remaining patients in person. The same questionnaire was used at both the initial test and the retention test.

On both the initial test and the retention test, we asked participants at the beginning of the questionnaire if they could tell us the most important news event that had occurred during the second week of September, 2001. If they gave no answer, or recalled another event, we read them a series of cues (“World Trade Center”; “New York”; “airplane”; “terrorism”), one at a time in fixed order, until they provided the correct answer.

For the initial test, we computed similar scores to evaluate memory for the target event and reception event. For each, participants were assigned a 0 if they did not provide an answer to a relevant question or gave a wrong answer, and a 1 if they gave a correct response. The maximum possible score was thus based on five questions for the target event and six for the reception event. Because of the different number of questions contributing to the two summed scores, we converted all scores to proportions. For the target event, we could know whether participants’ answers were accurate, because these were factual statements about the terrorist attacks that could be evaluated as true or false. For the reception event, we verified patient responses with a relative or caregiver whenever possible. If we found that a patient’s response to a relevant question was inaccurate, we assigned it a score of 0.

Retention of the target event was scored as a proportion of information recalled on the initial test. Retention of the reception event was scored (as in previous FM studies; e.g., Cohen et al., 1994 ; Conway et al., 1994 ; Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ) as a measure of congruence between a subject’s responses on the initial and those on the delayed tests. Two judges, who were blind to the group membership of each participant, rated the consistency of each persons’ answer on the initial and the delayed test using a scale of 0, 1, or 2. They assigned a score of 0 if on the delayed test the answer was forgotten or inconsistent with the initial test, 1 if at retest it was somewhat congruent with or less specific than the initial test (e.g., for place, “at home, in the living room chair” on the initial test, and “home” on the retention test), or 2 if it was highly similar between tests. The raters agreed on 88% of answers; in cases of disagreement we computed the median rating. If a person failed to answer a relevant question on the initial test it was omitted from his or her congruence measure. We derived a summed congruence score for the reception event (based on a maximum of six questions) and converted it to a proportion for each individual. This score thus reflected the proportion of information originally reported about the reception event that was retained across the six-month delay, and as such was a measure of individuals’ consistency (not accuracy per se ). 3 Therefore, because we cannot be certain that each participant’s report about the reception event was accurate, it was the consistency data that were of primary importance.

We compared memory in the three groups of participants, and all comparisons were performed both with and without the Korsakoff and AcoA patients. Because the healthy subjects’ scores were on the ceiling on most measures, and variances across groups were unequal, we conducted non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U tests) for comparisons between groups. For descriptive purposes, however, we report means and standard errors.

Memory on the Immediate Tests

Results of the immediate tests are shown in Table 3 . On the initial test of memory for the target event, 7 out of the 12 MTL/D patients were unable to tell us the most important news event of the second week of September, 2001 without at least one of the four extra cues. In contrast, all of the FL patients and the healthy subjects could tell us something about the terrorist attacks without these cues. Even with the extra cues, four of the MTL/D patients (RM, SS, TR, and WK) reported absolutely no information about September 11th during either session; none of the other participants had this difficulty. These four patients were therefore excluded from the analyses of memory for the reception event. Overall, the MTL/D group reported significantly less information ( M = .55) about what happened on September 11th than the healthy subjects ( M = .97; U = 28.50, p = .001). The FL group ( M = .83) was also impaired relative to the comparison group ( U = 47.50, p = .01). When analyses were conducted on the smaller groups of patients (i.e., without the KA patients in the MTL/D group and without the AcoA patients in the FL group), the only change in the results was that the difference between the FL and MTL/D patients ( U = 14.50, p = .07) was now marginally significant.

Mean (and Standard Deviation) proportion of information recalled for the target and reception event in MTL/D patients, FL patients, and healthy participants, on the immediate test

Scores of the four MTL/D patients who reported nothing about the target event were omitted from the reception event.

On the initial test of memory for the reception event, the MTL/D patients ( M = .73) and the FL patients ( M = .83) were not significantly different from one another ( U = 35.00, n.s. ) but both were impaired relative to the healthy participants ( M = 1.00, U = 22.50, p = .001, and U = 67.50, p = .04, respectively). When the smaller patient groups were analyzed, these differences were no longer significant.

Memory on the Delayed Tests

Six months later, when we examined memory for the target event, 6 of the 12 MTL/D patients were unable to tell us anything about September 11th without at least one of the four supplemental cues. Even with the extra cueing, the eight MTL/D patients who recalled the event initially still retained significantly less ( M = .76) about the events of September 11th than the healthy participants ( M = 1.00; U = 15.00, p < .001). The FL group ( M = .94) was not reliably impaired relative to the healthy group, and retained significantly more target information across the delay than the MTL/D group ( U = 20.50, p = .02), as shown in Figure 1 . Analyses of the smaller groups produced identical findings.

Mean (and standard error) retention of the target and reception event in MTL/D patients, FL patients, and healthy participants on the delayed test.

For the reception event, the MTL/D patients ( M = .47) and the FL patients ( M = .42) retained equivalent amounts of information ( U = 44.00, n.s. ), and both groups were impaired relative to the healthy group ( M = .69, U = 26.00, p = .03, and U = 33.00, p = .005 respectively). Analyses of the smaller groups revealed the same findings.

Correlations between Psychometric Tests and Memory for the Target and Reception Events

We also examined whether performance on the psychometric tests listed in Tables 1 and ​ and2 2 was related to memory for the target and reception events, using Pearson correlations. Because of ceiling levels of performance on the initial test, only results from the delayed test were examined. We collapsed all patients into one group for this analysis, in order to maximize statistical power (separate analyses on the two patient groups yielded similar patterns of results to those reported here). We included the four MTL/D patients who did not recall the event on the initial test in the target retention correlations, assigning them a score of 0. Retention of the target event was correlated with the General Memory index from the WMS- III (1997) , r = .56, p = .01, but not with any of the frontal/executive function measures (WCST categories, WCST perseverative errors, FAS, and Trails B; all rs ≤ |.20|). Retention of the reception event was not reliably correlated with the General Memory index from the WMS - III ( r = .005) 4 , nor was it significantly correlated with any of the measures of executive function (all rs ≤ |.24|).

We evaluated the effects of medial temporal lobe/diencephalic (MTL/D) and frontal lobe (FL) lesions on flashbulb memory. We asked patients what they remembered about the September 11th terrorist attacks (the target event ), and how they learned of the news (the reception event ). Of primary interest was memory over the long term (i.e., after 6 months). We found, first, that long-term memory for what happened during the attacks was impaired only in the group with MTL/D damage. Second, despite the MTL/D group’s impaired memory for information about the terrorist attacks themselves, they actually retained slightly more source information over time than the FL group. Finally, we found that the FL patients were selectively impaired in recall of the reception event.

Long term memory for what happened during the September 11th terrorist attacks (i.e., the target event), was reliably poorer in the MTL/D group than in the other groups, consistent with previous findings of autobiographical or episodic memory impairment in such patients. On the other hand, long-term memory for the events of September 11th was relatively good in the FL group. The FL patients were indistinguishable from healthy participants, and had significantly better memory for the target event than the MTL/D group. All of the FL patients could tell us about what happened on September 11th without any of the additional cues, whereas many of the MTL/D patients needed these extra cues. Even with this extra help, four of the MTL/D patients could still report absolutely nothing about the target event, just a few days after it occurred. Long term memory for the target event was correlated with delayed memory indices from the WMS, suggesting that memory for the target event relied on processes required on standard tests of episodic memory.

In contrast, the FL patients were significantly impaired on memory for the reception event, that is, how they heard about September 11th. The MTL/D group was also impaired, but showed slightly better retention of the source of the news than the FL group, despite the FL group’s superior memory for the target event. Unlike memory for the target event, memory for how one learned the news about September 11th was not predicted by standard memory measures.

Taken together, these findings suggest that the MTL/D group had a global impairment that covered memory for both the central event and its source. The FL patients, on the other hand, appeared to have a more selective memory deficit specific to source. This pattern of results is consistent with laboratory studies contrasting item and source memory in neurological patients. When MTL/D pathology is severe, as in the present case, it may involve loss of all aspects of an experience in memory, including both item and source information (see Schacter et al., 1984 ; Shimamura & Squire, 1987 , 1991 ). In contrast, FL injury does not usually produce amnesia for item information, but instead may impair processes necessary for attending to and integrating item and source information at encoding, and/or searching memory and evaluating item-source matches at retrieval (e.g., Glisky et al., 2001 ; Janowsky et al., 1989a ; Senkfor & Van Petten, 1998 ; for a review, see Moscovitch, 1994 ). Despite the fact that FL pathology impaired source memory in the present study, we found no reliable correlations between the neuropsychological measures of FL function and source memory. This is consistent with some previous reports ( Kopelman, 1989 ; Shimamura & Squire, 1991 ) but not others (e.g., Schacter et al., 1984 ; Shimamura & Squire, 1987 ; Simons et al., 2002 ). The failure to find reliable correlations may be attributable to the high degree of inter- and intra-subject variability among patients, and the relatively small sample sizes used in most patient studies. In addition, the various tests of FL function likely measure a variety of different processes, and may depend at least partly on nonfrontal regions as well. In general, however, source memory appears to be more consistently related to pathology and processes in the FL than in the MTL/D, although there may be exceptions to this rule.

Are flashbulb memories qualitatively different from other kinds of source memory? Based on previous findings, we thought that the FL patients might show intact source memory in the present study because of the high degree of emotional arousal associated with the event ( Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ; Kapur et al., 2000 ). Although emotional arousal may have facilitated encoding of source information in the FL patients, leading to relatively normal memory for the reception event on the immediate test, there was no evidence that emotional arousal facilitated long term retention of source information in the FL group. It is therefore possible that the FL patients’ poor source memory after six months represents a frontally based retrieval deficit. This finding in FL patients stands in contrast with results from a previous study, in which older adults with below average FL function showed normal flashbulb memory ( Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ). It could be that in older adults the FLs are functioning inefficiently, but their function can be enhanced or boosted by emotional arousal, thereby improving source memory. In neurological patients with substantial structural damage to the frontal lobes, however, such enhancements may have less effect. It could also be that some of the patients with FL damage suffered emotional dysfunction and were unable to benefit mnemonically from the emotional arousal that usually accompanies a flashbulb event. We were not able to obtain objective measures of emotional arousal in the present study. The self-report measures that we did collect showed little variability.

Regardless of whether FMs are qualitatively different from other kinds of source memory, overall flashbulb situations appear to be remembered better than other events. In several studies people have also been asked to report on a comparison event (i.e., the most interesting event that occurred in participants’ own lives around the same time as the flash-bulb event), in order to study potential differences between flashbulb and other autobiographical memories. People almost always remember more about the flashbulb reception event than about the comparison event (e.g., Christianson, 1989 ; Davidson & Glisky, 2002 ), perhaps because the former is usually more emotionally arousing than the latter. In the present study, we attempted to assess memory for a non-emotional event that occurred in the week before September 11th, but patients were largely unable to report such an event, and so we were unable to make a direct comparison. Even though we were not able to make this comparison, it is interesting to note that 8 out of the 12 MTL/D patients displayed relatively good memory for the target event, possibly because of its emotional aspects (see also Ogden & Corkin, 1991 ). It is also likely that the amygdala plays a key role in FM, given that it has been implicated in the beneficial effect of emotional arousal on memory in the laboratory (for reviews, see Buchanan & Adolphs, 2002 ; Hamann, 2001 ). Only a few patients in our study had evidence of amygdala damage, however, making it difficult to examine its hypothesized contribution to FM. To answer this question, it might be fruitful to investigate whether people with focal amygdala pathology have normal FMs, although, to our knowledge, this has not yet been reported.

Other variables may also have contributed to differences in memory among groups, or lack thereof (for example, if people in one group were especially surprised or aroused by the event, or had greater exposure to media coverage of it, than in the other groups). In this study, although we collected self ratings of surprise, arousal, and rehearsal from our participants, they appeared not to be reliable in the patient groups: The FL patients may have had poor metamemory (e.g., Janowsky, Shimamura & Squire, 1989b ) and the MTL/D patients may have had difficulty making accurate retrospective ratings. We have no reason to think, however, that these factors differed across groups. For example, of the four MTL/D patients who remembered nothing, three spent at least a moderate amount of time watching television and/or reading newspapers, and so had many opportunities to re-experience and rehearse the event. The spouse of one of these patients, TR, reported having many conversations about the events of September 11th with him. Yet despite this, and the fact that on the initial test he was wearing a shirt with a logo referring to the September 11th attacks, he remembered nothing about them. On the delayed test, when cued with the terms World Trade Center, New York, airplane , and terrorism , he said that the obvious answer would be that terrorists had flown an airplane into the World Trade Center in New York, but he did not think this had ever occurred. Similarly, Kapur et al. (2000) reported no relation between such secondary variables and FM in MTL/D patients: How often they discussed and saw media coverage of a flashbulb event had no obvious bearing on their recall. Although many secondary factors are often associated with FM strength in normal individuals (for a review, see Conway 1995 ), their influence on FM in people with memory impairments may be less evident because of poor performance overall.

Future research could examine whether specific subregions of the MTL/D or FL are differentially important for FM. We saw no obvious relations between lesion locus and performance in either of the patient groups, but this may have been because they were relatively small in size and there was considerable heterogeneity with respect to lesion location. Future work might also explore whether there are certain conditions under which patients with MTL/D or FL pathology can show evidence of preserved FM. For example, patients might show intact implicit memory, or might be able to recognize information even if unable to recall it. Of course, all research on memory for real-world events must be interpreted with caution, because of the challenges inherent to such studies. Because these studies use retrospective reports, researchers can only examine test-retest consistency of participants’ responses, rather than their accuracy. As well, the relative rarity of public flashbulb events limits our opportunities to study the brain regions involved in memory for these situations. For these reasons, laboratory studies of emotion and source memory may be a more productive avenue for future research.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by fellowships from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to P. D., a National Institute on Aging grant (AG 14792) to E. G., and a National Institute on Neurological Disease and Stroke grant (NS 26985) to the Memory Disorders Research Center at Boston University and the Boston VA Healthcare System. We thank Lee Ryan for access to healthy participants; Lis Nielsen, Jasmeet Pannu, Pamela Perschler, and Sheryl Reminger for help contacting participants; Mick Alexander, Kelly Sullivan Giovanello, and David Schnyer for providing lesion data on the patients from Boston; Michael Robinson and Andrea Soulé for assistance with data collection, entry, and analysis; and members of the Memory Interest Group at the University of Arizona for helpful comments on a preliminary report. Preliminary findings were presented at the 2003 International Neuropsychological Society meeting in Honolulu, HI.

1 An exception may involve spatial context, which may be more dependent on the MTL/D than the FL region of the brain (e.g., Smith & Milner, 1981 , 1984 ).

2 Four FL patients (AS, DJ, HZ, and PD) were not available for psychometric testing (see Table 2 ). Patient GM was not tested on VIQ because of a mild residual expressive language deficit.

3 This retention scoring method reflected consistency, which is necessary for, although not synonymous with, accuracy. That is, if a subject’s two reports were inconsistent, then we knew that at least one was inaccurate, and could score the data as such. However, even if reports were consistent over time, they were not necessarily accurate.

4 For two FL patients, we instead used a similar measure, the Delayed Recall index from the WMS-R (1987) — see Table 2 .

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Flashbulb memories: conceptual and methodological issues

Affiliation.

• 1 London School of Economics, UK.
• PMID: 8556535
• DOI: 10.1080/09658219508251497

Although flashbulb memory research is now well established, it is still not clear exactly what researchers are referring to as flashbulbs, and what is the best way to address the phenomenon. There are at least two ways in which the term "flashbulbs" is used, and at least two conceptual approaches that can be used to research them. The first usage corresponds to the bold theoretical conjectures put forward by Brown and Kulik (1977). The second results from empirical classification and intuitively lacks the essence conveyed by the first meaning. The two approaches concentrate on the cognitive and societal aspects, respectively. Although these are not incompatible, they make different assumptions and use different methodologies. We argue that research should be directed towards more unified theorising, and we describe methodologies appropriate for this approach.

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Distinct processes shape flashbulb and event memories

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• Published: 12 November 2013
• Volume 42 , pages 539–551, ( 2014 )

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• Carla Tinti 1 , 3 ,
• Susanna Schmidt 1 ,
• Silvia Testa 1 &
• Linda J. Levine 2  

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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 Football World Cup Championship after a delay of 18 months. 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.

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Walking the streets of a large Italian city at 10:40 PM on July 9, 2006, no one is around, and a mysterious silence enshrouds the city. Behind the windows, blue light flickers. Suddenly, an immense, unitary cry of joy pierces the silence. People flood the streets, honking car horns, setting off firecrackers, waving Italian tricolor flags, and chanting. A celebration explodes that will last the whole night everywhere in Italy: The Italian National Team had won the 2006 World Cup Football Championship. How did Italians appraise this event? How did they feel about it? A year and a half later, what would they remember about it? In the present study, we examined a positive flashbulb memory. We examined the factors that shaped people’s memories of both the event itself and the circumstances in which they had learned about it. The aims were to determine whether event memory and flashbulb memory have different determinants, and thus different characteristics, shedding light on the enduring puzzle of why flashbulb memories often combine inaccuracy with striking vividness and subjective certainty.

Autobiographical memory and emotion: The concept of flashbulb memory

Autobiographical memory refers to the maintenance of self-related information, especially experiences that are indispensable to our identities (Baddeley, 1990 ; Brewer, 1986 ). In Conway’s model (e.g., Conway, 2005 ; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000 ), autobiographical memory includes information at three levels of specificity: lifetime periods (e.g., “When I was at university”), general events (e.g., “Our trip to Florence”), and event-specific knowledge (e.g., “When I saw Botticelli’s Allegory of Spring at the Uffizi Gallery”). Flashbulb memories fall into Conway’s third category, event-specific knowledge, and consist of representations of personal experience (e.g., “I remember seeing Messi score a goal”) rather than semantic knowledge (e.g., “I know that Messi scored a goal”). Proposed more than 30 years ago by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ), the concept of “flashbulb memories” refers to detailed, long-lasting, and vivid memories of the personal circumstances in which people first heard about an unexpected, consequential, and emotion-arousing event. Some researchers have argued that flashbulb memories do not comprise a distinct subtype of episodic memory with special characteristics, and that the term has outlived its usefulness (e.g., McCloskey, Wible, & Cohen, 1988 ). Others have argued, however, that these memories are characterized by unusual vividness, subjective certainty, and longevity, if not accuracy (e.g., Talarico & Rubin, 2007 ). Because of these characteristics, flashbulb memory continues to be a topic of strong interest to both memory researchers and the public (e.g., Day & Ross, in press ; Hirst et al., 2009 ; Koppel, Brown, Stone, Coman, & Hirst, 2013 ; Kraha & Boals, in press ).

As originally defined by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ), flashbulb memories are similar to photographs in their level of perceptual vividness. They are formed when an event elicits a high degree of surprise, is important to the individual, and/or evokes intense emotional arousal. By analyzing numerous events with these characteristics, R. Brown and Kulik showed that the resulting memories typically contain information that falls into the following categories: place , ongoing activity , informant , own affect , other affect , and aftermath . In addition to these “canonical” categories, flashbulb memories sometimes contain idiosyncratic information, (e.g., the color of clothing worn by people present when the news was received). Importantly, both the canonical and idiosyncratic details concern the context in which the news of the event was received rather than the event itself.

Since the original work by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ), many studies of flashbulb memories have been conducted by examining people’s reports concerning dramatic and emotion-arousing events such as the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle (Bohannon, 1988 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ), the September 11 terrorist attacks (Hirst et al., 2009 ; Kvavilashvili, Mirani, Schlagman, Foley, & Kornbrot, 2009 ; Lee & Brown, 2003 ; Luminet & Curci, 2009 ; Luminet et al., 2004 ; Pezdek, 2003 ; Silver, Holman, McIntosh, Poulin, & Gil-Rivas, 2002 ; M. C. Smith, Bibi, & Sheard, 2003 ; Tekcan, Ece, Gülgöz, & Er, 2003 ), or the death of important public people (e.g., W. J. Brown, Basil, & Bocarnea, 2003 ; Curci, Luminet, Finkenauer, & Gisle, 2001 ; Day & Ross, in press ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti, Schmidt, Sotgiu, Testa, & Curci, 2009 ).

Most studies of flashbulb memories have focused on negative events, but a few have compared the characteristics of flashbulb memories for negative and positive events. The results have generally confirmed the presence of the “canonical” categories identified by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ), regardless of the event’s valence (e.g., Berntsen & Thomsen, 2005 ; Kraha & Boals, in press ; Scott & Ponsoda, 1996 ). Differences between positive and negative flashbulb memories have also been found, but the precise nature of these differences has varied from study to study. Several studies have indicated that, relative to negative events, flashbulb memories of positive events tend to be more rehearsed, more vivid, and accompanied by a greater sense of reliving (e.g., Berntsen & Thomsen, 2005 ; Bohn & Berntsen, 2007 ; Breslin & Safer, 2011 ; Talarico & Moore, 2012 ). The findings regarding accuracy have been less consistent, with some showing greater accuracy for positive events (e.g., Breslin & Safer, 2011 ; Kraha & Boals, in press ), and others showing greater accuracy for negative events (e.g., Bohn & Berntsen, 2007 ; Kensinger & Schacter, 2006 ; see also Basso, Schefft, Ris, & Dember, 1996 ; Levine & Bluck, 2004 ) or no differences (Talarico & Moore, 2012 ).

Regardless of whether memory was assessed for positive or negative events, these studies partially challenge and partially confirm R. Brown and Kulik’s original claims concerning flashbulb memories. In contrast to those claims, flashbulb memories are far from being like photographs, because they change over time and contain numerous inaccuracies (Larsen, 1992 ; Neisser, 1986 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ; Talarico & Rubin, 2003 ). Consistent with R. Brown and Kulik’s claims, however, flashbulb memories seem to have characteristics that render them different from other types of memories. For instance, they are characterized by a higher level of vividness and subjective certainty (Talarico & Rubin, 2003 , 2007 ). People interviewed about the circumstances in which they learned about events that had a strong emotional impact have commonly affirmed that they had an extremely vivid memory for these circumstances even years later, and that they were fairly certain that they could report them accurately (R. Brown & Kulik, 1977 ; Christianson & Engelberg, 1999 ).

Given these unique features of flashbulb memories, the question arises as to why some emotional events seem to be so firmly fixed in memory that people claim they will never forget them and feel as if they are seeing the scene again exactly as it occurred. Researchers have attempted to answer these questions by creating and testing models of the determinants of flashbulb memory formation and maintenance (e.g., Conway et al., 1994 ; Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). Although they are not identical, most of these models share important determinants: surprise, importance or consequentiality, emotion, rehearsal, and event memory. We briefly review these features below. We then present a new model that accounts for the vividness and certainty associated with flashbulb memories by positing that event memory and flashbulb memory result from independent processes.

First, although present in most models, the key role of surprise hypothesized by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ) is controversial. Some studies have confirmed that surprise is a necessary determinant of flashbulb memory formation (e.g., Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ), whereas others have questioned its indispensability (e.g., Conway et al., 1994 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). Second, there is a general consensus on the fundamental role of importance or consequentiality in flashbulb memory formation (Conway et al., 1994 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Er, 2003 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). As was suggested by Finkenauer et al., the core role of this variable can be explained by referring to appraisal theories of emotion (e.g., Frijda, 1993 ; Lazarus & Smith, 1988 ; Scherer, 1984 ; C. A. Smith & Ellsworth, 1987 ). These theories postulate that appraising an event as important and consequential is a fundamental antecedent of a strong emotional reaction, which, in turn, promotes memory encoding and consolidation (for reviews, see Conway et al., 1994 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Levine & Edelstein, 2009 ). A third determinant common to most models of flashbulb memory is rehearsal . The relation of rehearsal to other variables differs across models, however. In some models, rehearsal is enhanced by strong emotion (e.g., Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ), in others by importance (e.g., Conway et al., 1994 ). Moreover, in some models rehearsal directly promotes flashbulb memory formation (e.g., Conway et al., 1994 ), whereas in others, its influence on flashbulb memory is mediated by event memory (e.g., Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ).

Importantly, event memory is the final determinant of flashbulb memory in several models (e.g., Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti, et al., 2009 ). The more detailed and accurate an individual’s memory for the facts about an event, the more vivid, detailed, and imbued with certainty is their memory for the personal context in which they received the news. As was pointed out by Luminet ( 2009 ), “among the direct predictors of flashbulb memory, importance and emotionality were very rarely found to be significant, while event memory seems to be a more systematic significant predictor” (p. 72). The view that event memory is a direct determinant of flashbulb memory deserves particular attention, not only because event memory was not considered by R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ), but also because it raises important questions about the specificity of the construct of flashbulb memory (Tinti et al., 2009 ).

In contrast to flashbulb memory, which refers to the autobiographical context in which a person learned about an event, event memory refers to memory for factual details concerning the event itself. As Pezdek ( 2003 ) argued, the details of the event and the autobiographical experience of the event “are perceived and processed separately, resulting in separate memories” (p. 1035). By definition, then, flashbulb memory and event memory differ with respect to their contents. Flashbulb memories entail a first-person perspective and involve qualia, and can be considered part of what some philosophers (e.g., Malcolm, 1963 ) define as “experiential memory.” In contrast, event memory consists of factual information about the original event. For this reason, flashbulb memory may differ for each person, whereas event memory, if correctly encoded and stored, should be identical for everyone.

Another important distinction between flashbulb memory and event memory may be their modes of rehearsal. The rehearsal of a flashbulb memory, for example during a conversation, can rely only on autobiographical memory, whereas the rehearsal of facts concerning an event can rely on either retrieval of information from autobiographical memory or consultation of the media. For example, in describing how they learned the news of the September 11th terrorist attacks (e.g., where I was, who was with me), individuals must rely on their autobiographical memories; rehearsal of these memories, in turn, reinforces the vividness of flashbulb memory. In contrast, individuals can be exposed to information about the original event again and again via the media (e.g., which tower collapsed first, at what time it collapsed), contributing to the vividness, completeness, and accuracy of event memory.

These differences between flashbulb memory and event memory raise questions about how they are related and about their respective determinants. The methodological constraints of previous studies have made it difficult to address these questions. For example, in some studies event memory was not assessed (e.g., R. Brown & Kulik, 1977 ). In others, the circumstances in which people learned of the event overlapped with the event itself (e.g., Er, 2003 ). In still others, the questions used to assess event memory and flashbulb memory overlapped (e.g., Tinti et al., 2009 ). Because of these methodological issues, the relationship between event memory and flashbulb memory, and whether event memory is a determinant of flashbulb memory, remain unclear (e.g., Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). In the present study, we addressed these questions by considering an event for which these two types memory could be clearly distinguished and assessed separately by questionnaire.

This study was conducted to test two primary hypotheses: (1) that event memory and flashbulb memory have different determinants, and (2) that event memory is not necessarily a direct causal determinant of flashbulb memory. To test these hypotheses, we identified an emotionally arousing event in which these two types of memory could be clearly distinguished, and tested a model in which event memory and flashbulb memory are the results of independent processes. This model is shown in Fig.  1 .

Theoretical model of flashbulb memory and event memory formation and maintenance

As is illustrated in Fig.  1 , the hypothesized model starts with interest. For a public event to lead to the formation and maintenance of flashbulb memory and event memory, it must capture a person’s interest because it pertains in some way to his or her concerns (Pezdek, 2003 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). From interest, two possible paths to event memory were hypothesized. According to the first, a fundamental determinant of event memory is the rehearsal of information about the event through exposure to the media, which, in turn, is enhanced by the appraisal of the event’s importance. Importance is not always essential for event memory, however. As Conway et al. ( 1994 ) noted, “an event of little or no personal importance associated with only minimal levels of affect may nonetheless be encoded into long-term memory in terms of the knowledge structures employed in the processing of that event” (p. 339). That is, the more we know about a certain topic, the easier it is to integrate and assimilate information about an event related to it. Thus, a second path is hypothesized in which prior knowledge promotes event memory. With respect to the formation and maintenance of flashbulb memory, a separate path from importance was hypothesized. Appraising an event as important can evoke an intense emotional reaction, which is expected to lead to the rehearsal of the reception context of the news. This rehearsal may consist of mentally reviewing the scene or speaking about one’s personal experience with others.

If event memory is a direct determinant of flashbulb memory, it is much harder to explain why flashbulb memories have been shown to contain so many errors. However, if, as hypothesized, event memory and flashbulb memory have different determinants, with correct event memory being reinforced by media exposure and flashbulb memory arising separately from emotion and the rehearsal of subjective experience, then the vivid yet error-prone nature of flashbulb memories is more easily explained.

In summary, we hypothesized that interest and importance could simultaneously engender “cold cognition,” leading to the formation of event memory, and “hot cognition” (cf. C. A. Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993 ), stemming from intense emotion, and leading to the formation of a flashbulb memory. Importantly, we did not expect to find a significant relation between event memory and flashbulb memory. Finally, on the basis of the conflicting findings in previous research regarding the role of surprise, we tested whether or not surprise was necessary for flashbulb memory formation, without making a prediction.

The present study

To test this model, we assessed the memories of Italian citizens for Italy’s victory in the 2006 Football World Cup Championship. The final match between the Italian and French national teams was held on Sunday July 9th in Berlin, Germany, at the Reuters Olympic Stadium. Italy defeated France by 5 goals to 3, in a final penalty shootout after a 1–1 draw at the end of the supplemental time.

This event was of great interest for most Italian citizens, since football is viewed as the national sport of Italy. Furthermore, Italy’s victory was an important event because of its implications for Italian football, and because a national victory of this type unifies people and gives high prestige to the nation. Thus, people could consider the event important because they were football fans, had a strong affective bond with the national team, or simply because they were Italian. Whatever its source, the appraisal of high importance was expected to increase the intensity of emotion aroused.

Appraised importance was also expected to promote two types of rehearsal. One type of rehearsal is mediated by emotion and focuses on the person’s experience in the moment that he or she learns about the victory (e.g., his or her own happiness and the happiness of others around, the noise of the honking cars and bursting firecrackers, etc.). The other type of rehearsal is more akin to a “diary” of the event and refers to what happened (e.g., who scored a goal, what was the score when the regular game time elapsed, who failed to make the decisive penalty kick, etc.). In the first case, rehearsal would consist in thinking and talking about people’s own experience, thereby enhancing flashbulb memory, whereas in the second case, rehearsal would involve repeated consultation of information about the event in different media, thereby enhancing event memory. Event memory was also expected to be enhanced by the individual’s general knowledge about football (e.g., the players’ names and positions, the time schedule of a match, etc.), without being mediated by the importance attributed to the event.

Finally, given its controversial role, we also tested whether surprise influences the formation of flashbulb memory. In the present case, the final match was an expected event, but given the excellence of the two teams involved, people could not definitively predict the outcome, and thus were expected to feel some degree of surprise at the end of the match.

Participants and procedure

The participants were 352 Italians. Their ages ranged from 18 to 51 years ( M = 23.4 years, SD = 7.3), and 44 % were males. About 18 months after the championship (December 2007–January 2008), questionnaires were distributed to students during classes at Turin University in Italy by two trained research assistants. The assistants explained the aims of the study and distributed the questionnaire to the students who consented to participate (98 %). Completion of the questionnaire took about 20 min. All of the participants were informed that the questionnaire was anonymous and that data would be used for research purposes only.

The questionnaire assessed flashbulb memories and eight possible determinants of their formation and maintenance (e.g., R. Brown & Kulik, 1977 ; Conway et al., 1994 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Luminet et al., 2004 ). Footnote 1 These determinants, and the indicators used to measure them, are described below. The labels of the indicators used in the tables and in the model path diagram in Fig.  2 are reported in parentheses. To decide which items to include in composite variables, we relied on the definition of the theoretical construct represented by the latent variable, with the restriction that each latent variable should have at least two indicators.

Standardized parameters of the empirical model of flashbulb memory and event memory formation and maintenance

Flashbulb memory vividness, detail, and certainty

Participants indicated how vivid (Vivid) their image was at the moment they learned that Italy had won the Championship, using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( extremely ). They were then asked, in an open-ended question, to report all the details of the image they had in mind. The number of words produced in response to this question was used as a measure of the level of detail of participants’ memories (Detail). In three additional open-ended questions, participants were asked where they were, who they were with, and what they did when they heard the news. For each of these three questions, participants also indicated how certain they were of their answers using 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( completely ). The mean of these three ratings was used as an indicator of certainty of flashbulb memories (FB_Certain).

Event memory accuracy and certainty

Twelve open-ended questions assessed participants’ ability to recall factual information about Italy’s victory in the 2006 Football Championship (e.g., At the end of the regular time, what was the result of the match? Against which player did Zidane commit a foul before being expelled?). Responses were scored 1 if correct and 0 if incorrect. As is common in analyses involving achievement scales with items scored as correct or incorrect, items were parceled to improve the normality and continuity of the variables’ distributions (Bandalos & Finney, 2001 ; Landis, Beal, & Tesluk, 2000 ). We first estimated a Rasch model to ascertain the unidimensionality of the 12-item scale (Rasch, 1960 ). Then we constructed two equivalent event-knowledge subscales by summing odd items and even items separately. Accuracy of event memory was thus measured by the number of correct answers to the six odd questions (scores ranged from 0 to 6, Accuracy1) and the number of correct answers to the six even questions (scores ranged from 0 to 6, Accuracy2). Participants also indicated how certain they were of their response to each question using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( completely ). To balance the number of accuracy and certainty measures (providing two measures of each), we calculated the mean certainty for each participant separately for the six odd items and the six even items (EV_Certain1, EV_Certain2).

Participants rated how important the event was for them (ImpPersonal), for family members (ImpRelatives), and for Italy (ImpNation), using three 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( very much ).

Participants were asked to think of the moment they learned that Italy had won the championship and to rate the overall intensity of their emotional reaction on an 11-point scale ranging from 0 ( no emotional reaction ) to 10 ( extremely intense emotional reaction ) (Intensity). They also rated the intensity of nine discrete emotions (sadness, pride, anger, relief, fear, satisfaction, happiness, regret, fulfillment), using 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( extremely ). The mean of the ratings for happiness, pride, relief, fulfillment, and satisfaction was used as an indicator of the intensity of positive emotion (EmoPos), and the mean of the ratings for anger, sadness, fear, and regret as an indicator of the intensity of negative emotion (EmoNeg).

Participants rated how surprising (Surprise), unexpected (Unexpect), and incredible (Incredible) they considered Italy’s victory, using three 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( very much ).

Rehearsal via media exposure

Participants rated how frequently they followed news about the Italian victory via TV, radio, newspaper, and the Internet, using four 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( never ) to 10 ( very often ). The mean of these four ratings was used as an indicator of exposure to media (Frequency). In addition, they indicated how many hours and minutes they spent during the 24 h after the victory following news about the event (Time). Answers to this open-ended question were transformed into minutes.

Rehearsal via speaking and thinking

Participants rated how frequently they spoke about Italy’s victory and the circumstances in which they learned about it, using two 11-point scales (0 = never , 10 = very often ). The mean score on the two scales was considered an indicator of overt rehearsal (Overt). Participants also rated how frequently they thought about Italy’s victory and the circumstances in which they learned about it, using two 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( never ) to 10 ( very often ). The mean rating on these two scales was considered an indicator of covert rehearsal (Covert).

Participants’ general knowledge about football was assessed using 14 questions (e.g., “What is the name of the Cagliari stadium?” “How many players can be substituted during a major league match?”). We followed the same strategy of item parceling used for event memory, for the reasons explained above. General knowledge of football was thus measured by the total numbers of correct answers to the seven odd questions (scores thus ranging from 0 to 7; Know1) and to the seven even questions (scores also from 0 to 7; Know2).

Interest in football

Participants indicated how strongly they supported the Italian national football team (FanNational), how strongly they supported their favorite football team (FanTeam), and how much they followed football generally (Follow), using three 11-point scales ranging from 0 ( not at all ) to 10 ( very much ).

Data analysis

The data analysis was conducted in two steps: (1) descriptive analysis and (2) structural equation modeling to test the relationships between the different hypothesized determinants of flashbulb memory and event memory.

Descriptive analyses

The means and standard deviations for study variables are reported in Table  1 . As the table shows, participants reported that they were rather strong supporters of football, especially of the national team (FanNational). Their knowledge about football was moderate, and the standard deviations indicated large differences among participants in their levels of knowledge (Know1, Know2). With respect to importance, participants appraised Italy’s victory as being a very important event for the nation (ImpNation) and for their relatives (ImpRelatives), whereas personal importance was evaluated as being slightly lower (ImpPersonale). Participants had a very strong overall emotional reaction when they learned about Italy’s victory (Intensity). Specifically, they reported having felt intense positive emotion (EmoPos), whereas negative emotion was reported only at very low intensity (EmoNeg). Participants rehearsed the circumstances in which they learned of Italy’s victory frequently, talking about it with others (Overt), as well as thinking about it (Covert). They also consulted mass media frequently (Frequency), spending an average of 100 min following the news about the event during the 24 h after its occurrence (Time). Participants’ mean ratings of how surprising, unexpected, and incredible (Surprise, Unexpect, Incredible) they found Italy’s victory were above the average value for each of the three scales.

With respect to event memory, participants provided correct answers to about 50 % of the event memory questions concerning the football game (Accuracy1, Accuracy2) and were moderately confident about their answers (EV_Certain1, EV_Certain2). With respect to flashbulb memory, participants reported very vivid memories of the circumstances in which they learned about Italy’s victory (Vivid). Open-ended reports of the details that participants recalled about the moment they learned about the event (Details) averaged 28 words in length, with large individual differences in the richness of the reports (range = 2 to 92 words). Almost all participants were able to report where they were (99.1 %), whom they were with (96.3 %), and what they did (99.1 %) when they learned the news. Footnote 2 Finally, participants were extremely certain about their flashbulb memories (FB_Certain).

Structural equation model

The proposed structural model was tested using LISREL 8.7 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2005 ). In the structural diagram presented in Fig.  2 , the hypothesized factors underlying the observed variables are represented by circles, and the observed variables are represented by squares. The single-headed arrows indicate the relations between latent factors and between latent factors and their indicators. The correlation matrix of the variables used to compute the structural model is shown in Table  2 . Since variables were not multinormal [Mardia’s test with Prelis, χ 2 (2, N = 352) = 529.39, p < .001], we used MLR (the robust maximum likelihood method) for estimation. No error terms were allowed to correlate.

The goodness of fit of the model was evaluated by several indices. Two global fit measures ( χ 2 and SRMR) were used to indicate the degree of discrepancy between the sample covariance matrix and the covariance matrix implied by the model. A comparative fit measure (CFI) was used to compare the fit of the hypothesized model with that of the null model. Finally, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was used to evaluate the approximation of the model-implied matrix to those of the population. Following the rules of thumb summarized by Schermelleh-Engel, Moosbrugger, and Müller ( 2003 ), we used the following criteria for evaluating a model as acceptable: χ 2 / df < 3, SRMR < .10, CFI > .95, RMSEA < .08. On the basis of these conventional cutoffs, the model provides a good statistical fit to the data, χ 2 = 668.79 ( df = 264, N = 352), χ 2 / df = 2.53, p < .001; SRMR = .080; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .066. Since the main hypothesis of this work was that event memory does not causally influence flashbulb memory, we compared this model to a model in which the path from event memory to flashbulb memory was constrained to be zero. The Satorra–Bentler chi-square difference test showed no difference between the two models, SB χ 2 (1) = 1.13, p > .05.

As expected, more interest in football predicted greater prior knowledge and attributing greater importance to the event. Furthermore, greater importance predicted enhanced flashbulb memory and event memory via two separate pathways. The first pathway linked importance with the intensity of emotion, which, in turn, predicted the frequency of overt and covert rehearsal. Rehearsal was the only direct determinant of the formation and maintenance of vivid and detailed flashbulb memories. This pathway explained 26 % of the variance for flashbulb memory. The second pathway linked importance with mass media exposure that enhanced the accuracy and certainty of event memory. Event memory was also enhanced by prior knowledge. The second pathway and prior knowledge explained 74 % of the variance for event memory. Importantly, the link between event memory and flashbulb memory was not statistically significant. Finally, surprise was not a significant predictor of flashbulb memory.

An important unresolved issue in studies of flashbulb memory has been whether event memory is necessarily a causal determinant of flashbulb memory. This issue is important from a theoretical standpoint because discovering that flashbulb memories have different determinants than event memories would support the view that processes specific to flashbulb memories during encoding invest these memories with unique characteristics and justify us in considering them special memories (Christianson, 1989 ). Finding that flashbulb memory and event memory originate from two different processes would also suggest that the processes that maintain these two types of memories differ. For event memory, details can be maintained through exposure to media accounts. In contrast, for flashbulb memory, remembered details originate from an individual’s own experience and can only be maintained by thinking about the experience and discussing it with others. This could facilitate reconstructive processes, undermining the accuracy of flashbulb memory, while subjective certainty could remain very high.

Methodological difficulties have hindered investigators’ ability to address whether flashbulb memory and event memory have unique determinants, however. In some studies, event memory was not assessed (e.g., R. Brown & Kulik, 1977 ); in other studies, memory for the circumstances in which people learned about an event (such as an earthquake) overlapped with memory for the event itself (e.g., Er, 2003 ); in still other studies, some of the questions assessing event memory and flashbulb memory overlapped (e.g., Tinti et al., 2009 ). These methodological difficulties may have led investigators to propose that event memory and flashbulb memory formation are determined by the same factors (Er, 2003 ) or that event memory has a direct causal impact on flashbulb memory (Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ). In the present study, we made use of an event for which it was possible to clearly distinguish information pertaining to event memory from information pertaining to flashbulb memory. This allowed us to assess, through the creation of a structural equation model, the specific determinants of flashbulb memory and event memory, and to show that these two types of memory need not be related.

The resulting model included determinants that are common to previous models of flashbulb memory (e.g., Conway et al., 1994 ; Er, 2003 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ), including prior knowledge, importance, emotion, and rehearsal. Our model differs from prior models in three important ways, however. First, our model distinguishes between interest, or how closely the event is related to an individual’s concerns (e.g., interest in politics; Conway et al., 1994 ), and prior knowledge (e.g., facts known about Thatcher’s administration; Conway et al., 1994 ). We found that interest and prior knowledge have differing influences on memory for public events: Greater interest promotes both event memory and flashbulb memory, whereas greater knowledge is related only to event memory. Specifically, the greater their interest, the more prior knowledge people have about an event. Prior knowledge, in turn, enhances the organization and assimilation of incoming information, thereby leading to more detailed and accurate event memory.

Interest also promotes more detailed and accurate event memory in a manner that need not require prior knowledge. An event that captures interest is frequently something considered to be important, reflected in our model by a direct link between interest and importance. Viewing an event as important also promotes searching for, and attending to, information about the event in the media, thereby enhancing event memory. With respect to flashbulb memory formation, as suggested by previous models (e.g., those of Er, 2003 ; Tinti et al., 2009 ), events viewed as important or consequential evoke emotional arousal, which, in turn, leads to more rehearsal of the personal circumstances in which the individual learned about the event. In our model, rehearsal of personal circumstances was the only direct determinant of flashbulb memory.

A second way in which our model differs from prior models is that, as hypothesized, we found no significant relation between event memory and flashbulb memory. This finding was possible because we studied an event for which these two types of memory were dissociable, and because we further distinguished between different forms of rehearsal. Thus, a third way in which our model differs from prior models is by distinguishing between rehearsal through reexposure to factual details concerning the event as reported by media and rehearsal of the individual’s personal experience in the moment that he or she learned the news of the event. These variables are often combined in models of the determinants of flashbulb memory (e.g., Finkenauer et al., 1998 ). This distinction is crucial, however, because it helps to explain one of the most discussed and problematic issues in the research literature on flashbulb memories: their accuracy (Christianson, 1989 ; Larsen, 1992 ; Neisser & Harsch, 1992 ; Talarico & Rubin, 2003 ). As R. Brown and Kulik ( 1977 ) pointed out, rehearsal of the personal context in which an event was experienced serves to maintain the flashbulb memory but can also promote memory reconstruction, rendering flashbulb memories far less complete and accurate than photographs. They noted that “An actual photograph, taken by a flashbulb, preserves everything within its scope; it is altogether indiscriminate. Our flashbulb memories are not . . . a flashbulb memory is only somewhat indiscriminate and is very far from complete. In these respects, it is unlike a photograph” (1977, p. 75). Thus, R. Brown and Kulik did not intend their use of the metaphor of a photograph to imply that flashbulb memories include all details of the scene of the reception context, nor did the use of this metaphor deny the possibility that details might be added over time as a result of reconstructive memory processes.

Our model suggests that flashbulb memories may be composed of incomplete images of a small number of perceptual details of the reception context. Since these images are far from complete, when people retrieve and rehearse a flashbulb memory, they may attempt to reconstruct the whole context by relying on those few details, and this reconstructive process may promote false memories. For example, a person who learned the news about the September 11th terrorist attacks while in a bar might have encoded the image of a coffee cup and the counter. When the person is later asked to recall the context in which he or she learned the news, he or she may start from this image and add other details that were not part of the original experience but that are plausible according to a script (e.g., they may also recall that the usual bartender was there, even if this detail could not be correct because the usual bartender was at home ill that day). Thus, even if accuracy is not a defining characteristic of flashbulb memory, and those representations differ from what actually occurred, they may still be vivid and detailed representations of past events.

Moreover, the finding that event memory and flashbulb memory result from distinct processes suggests that they may be independent of each other in some cases. People may recall details about an event without remembering the circumstances in which they first learned about it. People may also recall how they first learned about an event without recalling many details about the event itself. Both the fact that flashbulb memories can result from reconstructive processes and the fact that they can exist independently from event memory merit further research, because they have important implications for real-world concerns such as the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Another issue that should be addressed in future research is whether our findings, especially the absence of a significant relation between event memory and flashbulb memory, can be replicated with a negative event. Research that tests this model using an event that evokes positive emotion in some people and negative emotion in others would be especially valuable, because it would shed light on the effects of valence on both event memory and flashbulb memory.

Finally, it should be noted that this study was carried out 18 months after the Italian football victory. Thus, we assessed people’s recall of the determinants of event and flashbulb memories. In future research, it would be interesting to test whether the model can be replicated when assessing flashbulb memories, event memories, and their determinants immediately after the event occurred and months later. This would allow for an assessment of the consistency of flashbulb memories, as well.

In conclusion, our findings support R. Brown and Kulik’s ( 1977 ) original definition of flashbulb memory as memory of a person’s own circumstance when first hearing the news of a striking public event that is characterized by a “primary, ‘live’ quality that is almost perceptual” (p. 74). The main contribution of this work has been the demonstration that the contents of flashbulb memory and event memory need not be related and that their main determinants can be clearly differentiated. Because flashbulb memory relies on the rehearsal of personal circumstances, whereas event memory relies on prior knowledge and media exposure, flashbulb memory contains idiosyncratic elements and may entail distortions due to reconstructive processes, whereas the content of event memory is ideally the same for everyone and is objectively verifiable. These findings have important implications for a longstanding debate in the field about the nature of flashbulb memory (Christianson, 1989 ; Conway et al., 1994 ; Finkenauer et al., 1998 ; Pezdek, 2003 ; M. C. Smith, Bibi, & Sheard, 2003 ). They support the view that flashbulb memory—defined as memory of a person’s own circumstances when first hearing the news of a striking public event—can be considered a distinct type of memory.

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Carla Tinti, Susanna Schmidt & Silvia Testa

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Tinti, C., Schmidt, S., Testa, S. et al. Distinct processes shape flashbulb and event memories. Mem Cogn 42 , 539–551 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0383-9

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Published : 12 November 2013

Issue Date : May 2014

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0383-9

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