PSYC 2501 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Source-Monitoring Error, Flashbulb Memory, September 11 Attacks
26 Apr 2018
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Flashbulb memory errors
• Flashbulb memories
o Memories of shocking, highly charged events
o Are flashbulb memories special? Are they better than regular memories?
o Memory and emotion
• Memories of emotional events tend to be more easily remembered and
more detailed
• Experiment
▪ Study tested participants ability to recognize emotional and neutral
pictures one year after they had initially seen them
• People were better at remembering emotional pictures than
neutral
• Why?
▪ Emotional memories are rehearsed more, we pay more attention to
them, they tend to be more novel
▪ Amygdala activation
• Adrenaline and stress hormones enhance memory, and both
activate the amygdala
• fMRI scans show that amygdala activity is higher for emotional
words or pictures than neutral words of pictures
• People who have damage to their amygdala do not have
enhanced memory for emotional events
• In one experiment, patient BP, who had damage to his
amygdala, and normals were shown slideshows of a boy
and his mother
• The boy is injured halfway through story
• BP's memory was the same as normals for the non-
emotional part of the story, but normals had enhanced
memory for the emotional part
• But does that mean that they are somehow special kinds of memories
that are less prone to forgetting or distortions?
▪ No!
• Challenger explosion experiment
▪ Day after explosion subjects filled out questionnaire about what
they were doing when they heard about it
▪ They filled out a second questionnaire 6 months to 3 years later
• 21% originally said they heard about it on TV
• 2 1/2 years later 45% said they heard it on TV
▪ Reason: probably due to source monitoring error
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