Many of us may have vivid memories of the recollections
of the 21-month Emergency declared across India in 1975. Many of us may also have vivid
memories of the Sino-Indian War in 1962.
The 90s generation may be proud witnesses
to ‘Operation Shakti’ at the Indian Army's Pokhran test range, after which India
declared itself a major nuclear power on May 11, 1998.
However, a great many of us, who may not
have been visibly present at the site of the ‘event’ on that eventful day, we do
also have vivid, realistic memories of how we get ‘to know’ and ‘learn’ or ‘recollect’
about these events.
These recollections that we have,
especially, vivid recollections pertaining to dramatic events - be it in the
realm of the personal or the political - are called flashbulb memories.
A study of such 'flashbulb memories' is
called a flashbulb study.
Characteristics
of Flashbulb Memories
Not all historical events lead to
flashbulb memories. An event must attract or capture our individual attention
and be identified as something significant before the memory is intensified.
More
details, but not necessarily accurate details
Compared to ordinary autobiographical
memories, flashbulb memories include richer sensory, picturesque detail to the
event. But, at the same time, in a flashbulb memory, we are able to recall the
experience of learning about an
event, NOT the factual details of the event itself. Hence accuracy becomes contentious in 'flashbulb' memories.
There are also instances of false recollections,
which are called, ‘Phantom flashbulbs,’ on the recollection of an event from
the past. Hence, flashbulb memories include errors of omission and commission,
as with autobiographical memories.
Therefore, according to Hirst, now, almost 17 years down the line, after the September 2001 tragedy happened, intense research has revealed that, we tend to forget much, or falsely remember much more than we realize; and it is more likely that we tend to get our facts wrong!
Many flashbulb studies indicate that,
over an extended period of time, people’s memories of learning about the
events—and of the events themselves—eroded, which challenges the contention
that flashbulb memories are more accurate.
A very interesting primer on flashbulb
memory is the book Affect and Accuracy in
Recall: Studies of 'Flashbulb' Memories (1992). [I’ve got a copy of it
myself, which rather inspired me to write this post!]. The studies and findings of this book had been
widely cited for measuring flashbulb memory accuracy by comparing people's
immediate recollections with later recollections.
The book emphasizes on the importance of
dates to the study of “flashbulb memories.”
It also discusses the implications of
flashbulb memories for an understanding of the relationship between emotion and
memory, by discussing salient arguments like, Do emotions and arousal
strengthen memory?
The book has an interesting conclusion,
which avers that, in a study of flashbulb memory across times and climes, especially
in classical examples in which people recall "reception events"
(i.e., hearing some piece of important public news), 'flashbulb memories' are found to be less
reliable than other kinds of emotional memories.
The book also has a very fascinating take
on flashbulb memory with reference to the memory of children. David Pillemer, [in
the sixth chapter of the book,] does an extensive study of memory for a local
event among nursery school children. An unexpected fire alarm was the cause for
a threatening event within the life of the school. He finds through his studies
that, younger children remembered the event less accurately than older
children.
The book also brings out an interesting
observation that, flashbulb recollections declined more than factual
recollections, when there is nonstop media coverage to augment and to support
people's factual memories.
Talking of the importance of flashbulb
studies, Hirst says that, “What we’re really looking at in flashbulb studies is
consistency of people’s stories, and we found a dramatic inconsistency in what
people report after one week and after 36 months,” of the 9/11 incident.
“You tend to project your current
feelings about 9/11 on what you felt then,” explains Hirst.
“You see this in other aspects of daily
life. For instance, if we ask college students how they feel about a boyfriend
or girlfriend now, everything’s good. But if you ask them about the person
after they break up, they’ll say they knew he or she was bad for them. Our
emotions change over time, and it's hard to get back in that initial emotional
space.”
For more on Memory studies, I would
strongly recommend a wonderful book titled, Memory
in Culture, by Astrid Erll, which gives a wonderful overview to one of the
most exciting new interdisciplinary fields of research: Cultural Memory Studies.
With added inputs from -
Winograd, Eugene and Ulric Neisser. Ed. Affect and Accuracy in Recall: Studies of “flashbulb”
Memories. New York: CUP, 1992. Print.
Law, Bridget Murray. “Seared in Our
Memories.” Monitor on Psychology,
Vol. 42, No. 8, 1 Sept. 2011
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