Citation

Bohannon JN, Gratz S, Cross VS. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 2007; 21(8): 1023-1036.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/acp.1372

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Flashbulb memories of shocking news (Challenger Explosion, death of Princess Diana, Pearl Harbour and Iraq bombings) were employed to test two hypotheses: encoding emotion enhances memory and how one gets the shocking news will help determine the nature of what is recalled. Different groups of subjects (Total = 2405) remembered their discoveries at delays ranging from 2 weeks to 50 years on three memory measures: a free and probed recall test of their flashbulb discovery, and a probed recall of the facts concerning the events themselves. Subjects were grouped according to the source of their discovery (Media vs. Person), affect at encoding (calm vs. upset) and recounts (few vs. many). The results indicated that how one learns of shocking news determined the type and extent of the resultant memory. 'Media' subjects remembered more facts whereas 'person' subjects recalled more of their personal discoveries regardless of the initial flashbulb inspiring event. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en