Consistency of 9-11 Memories Kristen Sager, Advisor: Dr. Arnold L. Glass What is a Flashbulb Memory? Brown and Kulik argued personal circumstances during an unexpected, emotional- arousing event are encoded and stored in memory different than the memory itself. This type of event triggers a special neurophysiological mechanism which is activated for a short duration, which creates a flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memories are accurate, “live,” rich with visual representations, consistent over time and retrieved with confidence in its accuracy. The flashbulb memories are characterized by information upon first hearing of the emotional-arousing event including: place, ongoing event, informant, own affect, aftermath, and Idiosyncratic information. The Original Flashbulb Memory Study, Brown and Kulik (1977) Subjects were asked about their memory regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 13 years after the tragedy. 79 out of 80 of the subjects were found to have flashbulb memories. The subjects had a flashbulb memory if they (a). Answered, “yes” to the question, “Do you recall the circumstances in which you first heard that event?” and (b). Provided information in at least one of the six canonical information categories in reporting these circumstances. There was a problem with this study. Brown and Kulik claimed flashbulb memories are regarded as accurate and immune to forgetting, but the study did not test the accuracy of the subject’s memories. Subsequent Studies Addressed Accuracy - With a new test-retest model accuracy of memories were addressed by comparing the memory shortly after the event to memory after a long retention interval. These studies mostly demonstrate that flashbulb memory is NOT immune to forgetting. - One example of a study was completed by Talarico and Rubin (2003) who tested subjects 1, 6, and 32 weeks after the September 11 th attacks and found that flashbulb memories were not special in their accuracy, only in their perceived accuracy. - In another study, by Neisser and Harsch(1992) it was found that memories are likely to remain accurate for up to a year, but diminish after 2 and a half years. Reasons For Inconsistencies There are 2 different reasons for inconsistencies. First, no consistent representation of the memory is available for retrieval. Second, there is a consistent representation of the memory, but retrieval failure. In this study 2 memory aspects will test these reasons for inconsistencies: 1.Reminiscence: The remembering again of the forgotten without re-learning or a gradual process of improvement in the capacity to revive past experiences. After time to think, new generation strategies will lead to different activation levels of the targets. 2.Recall and Recognition: In a recognition test the subject is presented with a copy of the information to be found in their memory, this would aid in retrieval of the memory. The subjects are given a recognition question in the 2 nd phone call. On September 13, 2001 a class of cognition students completed a questionnaire that focused on his/her individual circumstances during the initial hearing of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The students were phoned two times after this initial report. The first call, more than three years later, asked the students the same questions from the questionnaire in order to gage the consistency of their memories. Reminiscence and recognition were assessed in order to test whether inconsistent memories were due to retrieval error or a complete loss of the memory. The major finding was that half of the subjects reported inconsistent memories, suggesting flashbulb memories are prone to deterioration. Most likely, these inconsistencies were due to retrieval error. Participants/Procedure A cognition class of 189 students at Rutgers University was originally chosen to complete this study. Out of these, 54 were able to complete at least one phone call to provide data regarding flashbulb memory. Of the 54, 33 completed 2 phone calls, which addressed reminiscence and recall/recognition data. The initial memory collection was on September 13, 2001, 2 days after the attack on the World Trade Center. 189 students received a questionnaire which asked the subject to:“Please describe in as much detail as possible how you first heard of the attack on the World Trade Center. What day and time was it? Where were you? Did you hear from a friend, television, radio, etc.? What were your thoughts at the time? How distressed has this made you: very, moderately, mildly, not at all?” The second and third memory collections were between the time interval of October 2004 and March These collections were completed over the phone and asked the same questions as the questionnaire. To test for reminiscence the subject was called 2 times. The time inbetween the 2 phone calls provided more opportunity for the subject to retrieve the memory. To test recognition the subject was given 2 distracter lines in addition to one line pulled directly out of what they wrote in their original recognition report. The subject was read all 3 lines and was told to pick out their actual memory. Analysis To assess the consistency of the memories between the initial memory report and the memory report 3 years later, the following 5 different pieces of information were compared: 1- Time 2- Who subject was with (company) 3- How subject heard (informant) 4- Where subject was (place) 5- Distress level For each of the 5 information categories the total number of subjects who provided an answer were totaled. Not all subjects provided an answer for each category of information, since it was free recall. By separating the categories one can see which category has the most consistent information. The graph below represents the percentage of subjects consistent in each category along with the total number of subjects with no errors. Example of an Inconsistent Subject Original report: “I awoke around 11 and when I left the bedroom a roommate/friend informed me that we were under attack.” 1 st phone report: “I woke up to his roommate coming into the room saying we were being attacked by terrorists.” 2 nd phone report: “…And we were sleeping and his roommate came into the room and said we were being attacked by terrorists.” Reminiscence Results 2 out of the 33 subjects demonstrated reminiscence (6%) Example: Original report: “After class was over, I found out the classes were canceled for the rest of the day. I called my husband and he gave me all the details.” 1 st phone report: “Then about the time that class ended it was a second period class, they canceled school and on the way home I was listening to the radio in the car and that is when I found out.” 2 nd phone report: “...3 rd period was canceled, they said that everyone can go home, on my way towards the car I heard people talking about another plane hitting the WTC, eventually I was able to get in touch with my husband and he was able to tell me what was going on.” These results show that this subject did have a consistent representation of her memory, but needed more time to retrieve it. However, since only 2 subjects showed this phenomena it is not a significant finding. Recall/Recognition Results 28 out of 32 (88%)subjects were correct in their recognition 15 out of 19 (79%)subjects were inconsistent in recall, but accurate in recognition Discussion The 100% consistency in time recall can be attributed to hearing news reports of the plane crash repeatedly. 4 out of 32 subjects who completed the recognition test were incorrect suggesting that their memory was completely gone, hence it was not a retrieval problem. However, this is not a significant finding. 15 out of 19 subjects were inconsistent in their recall BUT correctly recognized their memories. This suggests that their failure to recall consistently was due to retrieval error. However, in order for these results to be strong, one distracter must contain the same false information which the subject reported inconsistently. This study did not do this. According to Brown and Kulik, flashbulb memories should NOT change overtime. However, flashbulb studies, including this one, find that memory does change overtime. This is most likely the result of retrieval failure, caused by an excess of post-event information! Results