17 Facts About Flashbulb memory

Flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event that has happened in the past.

Arguably, the principal determinants of a flashbulb memory are a high level of surprise, a high level of consequentiality, and perhaps emotional arousal.

The memory stays intact in an individual who experiences a negative flashbulb memory but have a more toned down emotional side.

The most important thing in creating a flashbulb memory is not what occurs at the exact moment of hearing striking news, rather what occurs after hearing the news.

Flashbulb memory has always been classified as a type of autobiographical memory, which is memory for one's everyday life events.

Ratings of vividness, recollection and belief in the accuracy of memory have been documented to decline only in everyday memories and not flashbulb memories.

Latent structure of a flashbulb memory is taxonic, and qualitatively distinct from non-flashbulb memories.

Flashbulb memories are considered a form of autobiographical memory but involve the activation of episodic memory, where as everyday memories are a semantic form of recollections.

The accounts of flashbulb memory that have been documented as remarkably accurate have been unique and distinctive from everyday memories.

Flashbulb memory memories differ among cultures with the degree to which certain factors influence the vividness of flashbulb memories.

Therefore, the flashbulb memory becomes more accessible and vividly remembered for a long period of time.

Similar to the Photographic Model, the Emotional-Integrative Model states that the first step toward the registration of a flashbulb memory is an individual's degree of surprise associated with the event.

Flashbulb memory memories differ from traumatic events because they do not generally contain an emotional response.

Since the role of the amygdala in Flashbulb memory is associated with increased arousal induced by the emotional event, factors that influence arousal should influence the nature of these memories.

The engagement of these emotional Flashbulb memory circuits is consistent with the unique limbic mechanism that Brown and Kulik suggested.

Flashbulb memory research tends to focus on public events that have a negative valence.

Some researchers argue that the effect of rehearsal factors on individual Flashbulb memory is different with respect to the availability of the mass media across different societies.