What were you doing when man landed on the Moon? And when the Berlin Wall fell? And when the Twin Towers fell? If we have experienced all these events, it is possible that we have an exact and precise answer.
We remember those moments with great accuracy. Because? That’s what Roger Brown’s theory of memory explores
Roger Brown was a renowned American psychologist famous for his multiple studies and contributions to various areas of psychology, especially highlighting his studies regarding human language and its development.
Brown also had an important role in the study of memory, with notable research being carried out with James Kulik regarding the vivid memory of what people were doing at moments of great historical importance. coining the term flashbulb memory
Vivid memory or “flashbulb memories”
Flashbulb memories or vivid memories They refer to the precise, intense and persistent memory of the circumstances surrounding a situation of great importance in our life. We remember the event itself and what we were doing at the precise moment it occurred or when we found out about it.
The feeling of the person who has these memories is equivalent to the impression of having something similar to a photograph or a piece of film always available in memory, totally clear and without the possibility of error.
These are generally events of great historical importance Examples of this occur, for example, in people who remember exactly the moment when man landed on the Moon, the assassination of Kennedy or Martin Luther King, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the most recent attacks against the Twin Towers.
Generally, when we want to remember something it is necessary that the same information be repeated over and over again or that is linked to other knowledge so that it generates a memory trace that allows you to remember them later. The nervous connections that are stimulated by the learning carried out need to be strengthened. If it is never used or found useful, our body will consider the information neither relevant nor useful and will end up forgetting it.
But many memories are maintained much more permanently without needing to be repeated over and over again. This is due to the role of emotions It is known that when an event awakens an intense emotion in us, it generates a memory trace that is much more powerful and permanent than events without emotional significance. For example, the first kiss or the birth of a child.
This is the case of the events that generate flashbulb memories, the main reason why these moments and the circumstances that surround them are remembered in such a vivid way is similar to that of emotional activation: we are facing an unexpected event that surprises us. to a large degree. After the surprise, we process the importance of said event and this, together with the emotional reaction generated by confirming this relevance, ends up causing a strong memory of what happened and the circumstances that surrounded it to appear.
But it must be taken into account that the events themselves are only recorded if they are important to the person who remembers them or they feel some identification with what happened or those involved. For example, the memory of what was being done at the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination is generally more powerful for African American subjects who experienced the effects of racial segregation in the United States than for the Caucasian population.
However, despite the fact that a large proportion of people say they remember what happened with great precision and the high emotional impact it had on their lives, the total reliability of these memories is questionable.
Broadly speaking, the most essential information about the event is remembered but we must keep in mind that our memory usually focuses on capturing the most pertinent information and that every time we remember something the mind actually reconstructs the facts.
If our mind does not find the relevant information, we unconsciously tend to fill in the gaps through collusion In other words, we generally combine and even create material that seems relevant and fits our reworking.
Thus, it is common for us to unconsciously falsify our memories. It has been proven that the number of details correctly remembered decreases over time, even though the person continues to believe that all the details remain fresh. And little by little we are overwriting the most peripheral information. All this while the subject himself is completely convinced that the memory is real and exactly as he tells it.
