Discuss the role of digital technology on emotion and cognition Flashcards
Digital technology
Has evolved significantly throughout the last century with more and more people having televisions and computers and being able to share information more easily.
This has led to a more globalised world and has aided in communication.
Even though this is very useful in terms of communication, it can also have a strong effect on our emotion and cognition.
flashbulb memories
One such example is that being able to learn new information can have a strong effect on our flashbulb memories.
Flashbulb memories are memories of highly emotional events will be exceptionally clear, detailed, and accurate.
These events will be remembered as vividly as a photograph, hence the term “flashbulb” memory, as if a camera’s flash captures the moment perfectly in memory.
People will remember all the details surrounding the event, such as the time and place of the event, who they were with, and so forth.
However, how we hear the news, known as the reception context, may make a difference in how we recall the news.
During the past century, this has significantly changed due to technology.
Schaefer et al (2011)
wanted to see if there was a difference in memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks depending on whether people heard the information on television or from another person.
What Schaefer et al wanted to know
Obviously, when we first hear news from another person, visual images are absent.
The researchers wanted to know just how important these visual images are in the creation of flashbulb memories.
Procedure of Schaefer et al
The participants were asked to do a free recall of when they heard the news about the terrorist attack both 28 hours after the event and then again six months later.
They were not told at the time of the first recall task that they would be tested again six months later.
The participants were divided into two groups: immediate and delayed viewing of television coverage of the event.
Results of Schaefer et al
Those in the immediate group saw the event live on television or turned on television within minutes of hearing the news.
Those in the delay condition saw the event on television hours after being informed.
The quantity of information provided in the initial and follow-up reports, did not differ with regard to reception context.
However, the delayed viewing of images resulted in less elaborate and less consistent accounts over the 6-month interval.
Critical thinking of Schaefer et al
The study therefore suggests that it does not have a significant impact and that the television would not.
However it also supports that as a secondary source the television had lead to confusion and lead to people not being sure.
This therefore suggests that technology is an important source of information however, due to it having different accounts it can lead to a negative effect as individuals receive different account of the same information.
Evaluation of Schaefer et al
A strength of the study is that it used a real life situation and therefore lead to high ecological validity. However, an issue of the study is that this was a study that was 10 years after the event and therefore it is unsure whether the study can actually have such accurate results.
Berntsen (2009)
argued that another potential factor in the development of a flashbulb memory is when an event activates one’s social identity. This would lead to a sense of a heightened personal significance of the event, an emotional reaction to the event, and rehearsal of that event within one’s social group. Therefore, one would expect social media sites would enhance vividness and confidence in the accuracy of memories.
social media
As social media is still a relatively new phenomenon and it takes time to measure the accuracy of flashbulb memories there is very little research done on this question.
Talorico et al (2017)
Talorico et al (2017) carried out a study to see if the reception context would make a difference in the vividness and accuracy of memories of the assassination of Osama bin Laden the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. She and her team compared the memories of those who learned about the assassination through television, social media, or another person.
Procedure of Talorico
The participants were asked to recall how they heard about the event and what they remembered two days after the assassination and then again either 7, 42, 224, or 365 days later.
After two days, the findings were that television exposure was strongest both in accuracy and the vividness of the memory.
For accuracy of recall, personal communication was the weakest; for vividness, it was social media.
When examining the consistency of flashbulb memory over time, the reception context did not make a difference.
The study therefore suggests that overt rehearsal therefore leads to most people receiving a broad range of information.
The study is also evidence that the type of technology is also very important and therefore suggests that it is difficult to put technology into just one umbrella.
PTSD
It appears that technology may play a role in the creation of flashbulb memories. The images that we see in the media lead to a strong emotional response and overt rehearsal of the event. This research may play a significant role in a disorder that is linked to our inability to filter memories of trauma PTSD. Research indicates that it is not just that we learn about an event by watching visual images on the television or computer screen, but it also matters which images we are seeing.
Ahern et al (2002)
Ahern et al (2002) wanted to investigate the role that viewing graphic television images may play on PTSD. The researchers wanted to see if this would play a more significant role than the amount of time exposed to the media.
Procedure and results of Ahern
They carried out a telephone survey in which the participants’ exposure to media and symptoms of PTSD were discussed. The findings showed that specific disaster-related television images were associated with PTSD and depression. They found that participants who had repeatedly seen “people falling or jumping from the towers of the World Trade Center” had a higher prevalence of PTSD and depression than those who did not.
