A flashbulb memory is a vivid, highly detailed and long-lasting memory of the circumstances surrounding a surprising or emotionally shocking event, named for its resemblance to a photograph captured by a camera flash, seeming to preserve a moment with unusual clarity and completeness. Despite the vividness such memories carry and the high confidence people place in them, research has found that their details are only somewhat indiscriminate and far from complete, and that specific elements can be forgotten or distorted over time even as a person's confidence in the memory remains high. Researchers describe flashbulb memories as carrying six characteristic features, namely the place where the news was learned, the ongoing activity that was interrupted, the informant who conveyed the news, one's own emotional reaction, the reactions of others present, and the aftermath, with a high level of surprise and personal consequence considered the principal factors that give rise to one.
Facts
Core ClaimA sufficiently surprising and consequential event can trigger a distinct memory-encoding mechanism that produces an unusually vivid, detailed and confidently held memory of the moment the event was learned about, even though the memory is not actually more accurate than an ordinary one. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Flashbulb memory
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, first sentence.
A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event.
Historical overview section.
The term flashbulb memory was coined by Roger Brown and James Kulik in 1977.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event.
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