P1 - Cognitive - Emotion and Cognition Flashcards
what is emotion?
- intense mental state that arises subjectively rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes
what is a flashbulb memory?
special kind of emotional, autobiographical memory, that relies on elements of personal importance, emotion and surprise
what are the factors of the flashbulb memory?
- encoded in the brain like a photo
- extremely detailed
-highly accurate - resistant to normal forgetting
what are the 6 important features of flashbulb memory according to Brown and Kulik
- place, where they were at the time
- ongoing activity, what were they doing
- informant, how they learned
- own affect, how they felt
- other affect, how others felt
- aftermath, importance of the event and consequences
what it the aim of Brown and Kulik (1977)
To investigate whether dramatic and personally-significant events can create flashbulb memories.
what are the procedure of Brown and Kulik?
- retrospective questionaire to assess memories of 80 American participants and asked how they learnt about public events
- asked about major events, such as JFK assassinations and Medgar Evans, Malcom X and MLK assassinations
- they were asked about how they learnt about the event, where, when, how, what, who
what were the findings of Brown and Kulik (1977)
memories were very detailed, vivid and long lasting
JFK’s assassination led to the most flashbulb memories with 90% of participants recalled this
African Americans recalled more of civil rights leaders, 75% of black participants remembered this, compared to 33% of white participants
what is the procedure of Schaefer et al (2011)
38 uni students were asked to do a free recall of when they heard the news of 9/11 both 28 hours after and then 6 months later
immediate viewing: saw the event live on tv
delayed viewing: saw the event hours later from another person instead of tech
responses were coded by two independent researchers who coded the responses for: time, location, what they were doing, informant, presence of others, clothes worn, first thought, feelings, what they did after
critical thinking of Brown and Kulik (1977)
+ enough participants for in depth qualitative research
+ high ecological validity for other Americans
- results may be due to rehearsal
- self reported data
what is the conclusion of Brown and Kulik (1977)
Flashbulb memories are qualitatively different from other memories, allowing people to remember minor details of an event that they would otherwise forget. The difference in memory between black and white participants shows the importance of relevance of the information – culture influences the perceived relevance of an event, which influences the type of memory we have of it.
what is the aim of Schaefer et al (2011)
To see if there was a difference in memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks depending on the reception context - that is, whether people heard the information on television or from another person. The researchers wanted to know how important visual images are in the creation of flashbulb memories.
what were the findings of Schaefer et al (2011
The quantity of information provided in the initial and follow-up reports, based on the number of canonical categories and word length, 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
what is the conclusion for Schaefer (2011)
Receiving emotional information via television doesn’t make you remember more information. However, over time, information first learnt through the media was more reliable and detailed. Therefore, being exposed to emotional information via digital media does enhance the reliability and depth of information over time.
critical thinking for Schaefer et al (2011)
+ tested at different intervals
+ coded by two different independent researcher who didnt know the hypothesis
- different number of participants in each condition
- could have been influenced by the media since
evaluate the flashbulb memory
+ generated research evidence
+ research has shown that different areas of the brain are active when recalling FM which supports idea of neural networks involved
- hard to confirm the accuracy of FBM years after
- memory may be reconstructed based on discussions with other people
- cant explain why these memories are often no more accurate than any other memory
