Flashbulb memory

Flashbulb memories are vivid, precise and long lasting memories about almost everything surrounding a big and shocking event. These memories involve things like where they were, who they were with and what they were doing.
Brown and Kulik (1977) had their own theory of how FBMs are formed and maintained. They thought that the memories were formed in situations where we get surprised and receive highly emotional information. Why they stay so strong was thought to be because we tend to talk and discuss the event with others but also think about it ourselves. Brown and Kulik thought that all of this
reflection could be the cause of the memory being preserved so well. They also though that this would be the reason why we can remember details for so long after the event and still be pretty accurate.
Brown and Kulik were the first modern psychologists to study FBMs. They did a study with 80 participants (40 white and 40 black) and asked them questions about 10 events.  9 of the questions were about well-known event and the last one was personal. The participants were then asked to recall the circumstances they were in when they found out about the news of the event. Then they
were asked to think about how many times they had reflected and thought about it after the event, alone or with others. These events were all very surprising and many people have personal connections to them as well so they were expected to form FBMs, and they did. For example, 90% of the participants could recall the assassination of J. F. Kenny in 1963, and they new its reception context in vivid detail! The participants could also easily recall the personal FBM which often had to do with the death of a close one. This supports the theory perfectly since death is both surprising
and very emotional, and it’s also something we feel like we have to talk about a lot to deal with grief.

Biological factors affect on memory

Our memory is not always controlled by us. Sometimes we remember things we don't want to remember and other times we forget even if we want to remember. Sometimes this is caused by different biological factors. PTSD is a shorter name for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This can happen to people who have experienced a very extreme and discomforting situation. It can be children who have been exposed to abuse, raped women, or soldiers coming back from war. Adrenaline is a powerful hormone produced by the adrenal gland during high stress and in these situations lots of adrenaline is released into the system and this helps you remember the event better. If you get PTSD all the emotions you experience will haunt you for years after the event is over and you will remember it as vividly as if it's happening all over again. Dr. Pittman did a study where he dropped rats in a tub of water with a clear plastic box in the middle that the rats could't see. The rats would swim along the edge and eventually they would panic and start swimming around in different directions towards the middle and stumble upon the box. The next time the rats got dropped in the same tub they would first swim around the edge but would turn to the middle and find the box quicker. Then Dr. Pittman did a second trial and injected the rats with adrenaline. The rats would swim towards the middle of the tub at once the second time they were dropped into it, suggesting that they remembered that there was a box. On the third trial Dr. Pittman injected the rats with propranolol. Propranolol works against the adrenaline with beta-blockers that inhibit the binding of the neurotransmitters at the receptors where the memories are formed therefore propranolol may both dampen memory formation and dissociate the memory from emotional response. These rats swam around the tub edge just as if they had never been there before and there was no time change between the first and second time they were dropped. Another thing that can make us forget is not a drug but a disease called Alzheimer's that affects the brain. It kills nerve cells and causes tissue loss throughout the brain. The first and most affected area is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for the formation of new memories and also some learning and emotions. So this is why the first signs of Alzheimer's is memory loss. During the middle stage the memory loss gets worse and patients start forgetting family and friends and they also easily get lost even in familiar settings. At the last stage the brain is so damaged that the patient can no longer take care of themselves and they need around the clock supervision. There is no medication for Alzheimer's, so the patient will die from it. 

Is a cognitive process reliable

Memories are not copies but reconstructions of our experiences, and therefore memories of events have been shown to vary widely among witnesses. Loftus and Palmer theorized that it could be caused by information supplied after the event that activates our schema ans thereby inducing an altered memory of what actually occurred. So they decided to study the effects of language on memory in a study, Loftus and Palmer (1974). In the study they had 45 university students that watched several videos of car accidents. Then they were given the question, "About how fast were the cars driving when they..." and then they changed the verb for different groups. They got contracted, hit, bumped, collided, or smashed into each other. The results were statistically different between the first and last but not between every one of them even though the speed estimated increased the stronger the verb was. This showed that the participants were influenced by the words used when they were questioned about the even. If memory is altered easily it is not very reliable. Some limitations of the study was that the experiment only was conducted on university students and if they haven't been driving for a very long time it can have been hard for them to estimate the speed that the cars were going and they might have looked a lot at the verbs for clues while a more experienced driver would rely more on experiences and what their instincts are. Also the study was conducted in a lab and not at the actual accident so the accidents did not feel as "real" to the participants and they therefore lacked the emotional content so it's hard to say that this study would be completely accurate in real life events. Some strengths of having the experiment so controlled on the other hand is that it was easy to measure the results and see the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Also this study has been replicated many times and showed similar results every time. This is a strength since it shows that it was not a one time thing and that it wasn't just a specific group of people that it worked on and that makes the study more reliable. Going back to talking about how the lack of emotional content by not being at the place where it happens, affects the memory. Ihlebaek et al. (2003), staged a robbery involving two robbers armed with guns. The participants were split into two groups. The first group were on the place of the robbery while the second group watched a video of the robbery. The study showed that the group that had watched the video had a more accurate memory of what actually happened.   The people who experienced the robbery probably had much more emotions connected to what they had seen. This support the idea that eye witnesses don't have very reliable memories. A limitation of this experiment is that it was staged and therefore it has a low ecological validity. A strength on the other side, is that the experiment clearly showed the difference between seeing an even with your own eyes and being there compared to looking at a video.

Evaluating Schema Theory

Schema theory is the influence of stored knowledge on current information processing and on behavior. Therefore everything we know will influence our decisions of what we think and do. Schema are cognitive structures that provide a framework for organizing information about the world. We use schema to organize events, people, actions etc. New encounters with the world are rarely, if ever, new. This is because we always try to compare new encounters to something similar that we have experienced before. Our memories therefore play a significant role in how we process information and how we chose to act in a specific setting.The effect on schema on memory (Bartlett 1932), was a study to see how memory is effected by previous knowledge. In the study people were given a story about a culture different than their own. Then they were asked to retell the story. What happened was that the people changed many parts of it as they tried to remember it and they followed three patterns of distortion. Assimilation is when the participants changed the story to fit better with their own culture. Leveling is when they would only remember the parts that they thought were important, and sharpening is when when they would add details and emotions. This shows that the information they got about the story was changed for all the participants, but is was changed differently depending on the person. They all did things that made more sense to them so that it would fit their schema. Some limitations about this study though was that the participants were all form the same place and culture so the results may not apply to everybody around the world and does not represent the whole population properly. Also, the study was conducted in a controlled environment so it might not be completely accurate when it comes to real life situations. But a strength with having it in a controlled environment is that it is easier to measure and record results. In 1981 Sandra Bem proposed that Gender Schema Theory suggests that childrens gender identity is developed as they learn what is associated with their gender, and what other people of their gender do. therefore children tend to engage in things that are seen to be appropriate to their gender because it fits their schema about what their gender should and can do. A limitation in this suggestion though is that we can't ask children why they act like they do so there is no way for us to be sure.