Flashbulb memory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Flashbulb memory - Essay Example Kennedy was assassinated. Should this individual remember that they were flying a kite on the beach that day, this is an example of flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory is generally a unique phenomenon for each person experiencing it, with some individuals reporting more negative emotions with an event while others reflect positively on a particular moment in time. As such, there does not appear to be a unanimous belief in the psychological community that flashbulb memories will hold the same value or importance for each individual person. However, the fact that the human mind maintains the ability to instantly recall events from history with unbelievable accuracy tends to illustrate the complexity of human cognitive capabilities. Ask any group of individuals to describe the exact details of a specific day in the calendar year, perhaps a day when the group was in elementary school. Likely, they will not be able to provide details of the event with any kind of clarity. However, utilizing the aforementioned John Kennedy reference, cooking guru Julia Child can easily recall that she and her husband were eating soup at the time of the assassination (Greenberg, 2005). Another disaster occurred in England in which nearly 100 soccer fans were crushed to death during a stadium catastrophe. One month after the incident, all surveyed respondents were able to clearly remember the events of their lives at the moment they heard the news of the stadium disaster (Luminet, Curci, Marsh, Wessel, et al, 2004). All of the aforementioned situations would tend to illustrate that flashbulb memories are created by some form of rememberable stimuli, which engrains the daily events of an individual and links them directly with the tr aumatic or inspirational event. Though there is no clear evidence as to why this phenomenon occurs, however it has been suggested by several researchers that individuals are capable of