Brown and Kulik (1977) Flashcards
aim
to investigate the determinanant of flashbulb memories asking about assassinations, highly newsworthy eents, and persoanlly significant events
procedure
80 participants took part: 40 African Americans and 40 Caucasian Americans. The participants were given a series of nine events for example the assassination of President Kennedy and asked if they “recallyed the circumstances in which you first heard about the event.”For those evnts which they said yes there were then asked to write an account of their memore and rate it on a scale of personal importance.
results
Brown and Kulik found that people said that they had a very clear memories of were they were, what they did, and what they felt when they first leaned about and important public occurence such as the assassination of President KKennedy and Martin Luther Kind. 99% of the particpants recalled the circumastances pf which they heard about the assassination of Kennedy. Blakc participants were more liekly to have vivid, elaborate flashbulb memories about those national leaders who were most involved with the US civil rights.
-People in the study were also asked if they had FBM of personal evet. 73 out of 80 said they had FBM associated with a personal showck like the sudden death of a close realtice.
Conclusion
Brown and Kulik concluded that there are two important determinants of FBMs: event importance and emotionality
LINK
The memories are highly resistant to forgetting, the details of the memory will remain intact and accurate because of the emotional arousal at the momen of encoding. Results of teh study match the predictions of he tehory. They supprot the role of personal consequentialitu in the foramtions of flashbul memories. They also support the role of overt rehearsal in sistaining these memories.
