Long-term memory for the terrorist attack of September 11: Flashbulb memories, event memories, and the factors that influence their retention.

Abstract

More than 3,000 individuals from seven US cities reported on their memories of learning of the terrorist attacks of September 11, as well as details about the attack, one week, 11 months, and/or 35 months after the assault. Some studies of flashbulb memories examining long-term retention show slowing in the rate of forgetting after a year, whereas others demonstrate accelerated forgetting. The present paper indicates that (1) the rate of forgetting for flashbulb memories and event memory (memory for details about the event itself) slows after a year, (2) the strong emotional reactions elicited by flashbulb events are remembered poorly, worse than non-emotional features such as where and from whom one learned of the attack, and (3) the content of flashbulb and event memories stabilizes after a year. The results are discussed in terms of community memory practices.Keywords flashbulb memories; long-term retention; memory practices; event memory; emotional memory Brown and Kulik (1977) suggested the term flashbulb memory for the "circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event," for example, hearing the news that President John Kennedy had been shot. Since Brown and Kulik's description of their findings, the range of topics addressed in studies of flashbulb memories has grown substantially, from initial questions about special mechanisms (McCloskey, Wible, & Cohen, 1988; Neisser & Harsh, 1992) to more recent questions about the impact of aging and dementia (Budson, Simons, Sullivan, Beier, Solomon, Scinto, et al., 2004;Budson, Simons, Waring, Sullivan, Hussoin, & Schacter, 2007; Davidson, Cook, & Glisky, 2005), the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (Qin, Mitchell, Johnson, Krystal, Southwick et all, 2003), as well as the role of social identity [e.g., as seen in the presence or absence, respectively, of flashbulb memories of French citizens and French-speaking Belgians of the death of French President Mitterraand (Curci, Luminet, Finkenauer, & Gisle, 2001; see also Berntsen, 2008;Hirst & Meksin, 2008)]. Researchers have also begun to investigate memories for the flashbulb event itself (Curci & Luminet, 2006; Luminet, Curci, Marsh, Wessel, Constantin, Genocoz, et al., 2004; Pezdak, 2003;Shapiro, 2006; Tekcan, Berium, Gülgöz, & Er, 2003). In this literature, the term flashbulb memory refers to memory for circumstances in which one learned of the event and would include memories of where, when, and from whom one learned of, for instance, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. The term event memory refers to memory for facts about the flashbulb event and would include, for instance, that four planes were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack and that both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were targets. 1 1 There is much terminological confusion in the literature. First, the term flashbulb memory could be construed as implying an accurate representation of the circumstances in which one learned of the emotionally charged public...

Remembering President Barack Obama's inauguration and the landing of US Airways Flight 1549: A comparison of the predictors of autobiographical and event memory

“…Our findings, additionally, underscore the importance of a community's memory practices in sustaining event memory for a public event, especially when events are of less personal and broader importance (Hirst et al, 2009). Hirst et al (2009) which participants followed media coverage about 9/11, as well as the extent to which they engaged in conversation about it, were correlated with event memory accuracy, but not FBM consistency.…”

“…Hirst et al (2009) which participants followed media coverage about 9/11, as well as the extent to which they engaged in conversation about it, were correlated with event memory accuracy, but not FBM consistency. The effect they found for rehearsal, even for an event of great personal and broader importance, may have reflected the extensive level of coverage of the 9/11 tragedy.…”

“…Significantly, researchers have failed to find a consistent relation between four of these variables and FBM consistency (for a review, see Talarico & Rubin, 2009). The one exception is personal significance (Bohn & Berntsen, 2007;Conway et al, 1994;Curci, Luminet, Finkenauer, & Gisle, 2001;Er, 2003;Neisser et al, 1996;Niedźwieńska, 2003;Otani et al, 2005), and the related constructs of importance to social identity (see Berntsen, 2009) and to personal identity (as, for instance, measured by the Centrality of Event Scale; CES, Berntsen & Rubin, 2006 As for memory for the public events that elicit FBMs (i.e., event memory), although the literature is much smaller, the results have been more consistent (for studies on event memory, see, for example, Bohannon, 1988;Coluccia, Bianco, & Brandimonte, 2010;Curci & Luminet, 2006;Hirst et al, 2009;Shapiro, 2006;Smith, Bibi, & Sheard, 2003;Tekcan, Ece, Gülgöz, & Er, 2003). In addition to personal significance or importance to one's identity (Coluccia et al, 2010;Curci & Luminet, 2006;Tekcan et al, 2003), emotional intensity (Bohannon, 1988;Coluccia et al, 2010;Smith et al, 2003) and rehearsal (Hirst et al, 2009;Shapiro, 2006) have also been found to be positively related to event memory accuracy.…”

“…Researchers have, most often, operationalized FBMs in terms of the consistency between a baseline FBM report, culled shortly after the event, and a later report, culled after a given retention interval (e.g. one year; see, for example, Conway et al, 1994;Curci & Luminet, 2006;Hirst et al, 2009;Neisser & Harsch, 1992;Talarico & Rubin, 2003).…”

Flashbulb memories for Paris attacks in an alcohol-abstinent patient

“…Flashbulb memories are detailed, vivid and long-lasting autobiographical memories of attributes of the reception context of surprising and emotionally arousing public events [20]. Mirroring this definition, people tend to demonstrate significant recall of attributes of the reception context (e.g., where they were when the event occurred, their ongoing activities, who informed them about the event, their reactions and those of the informant) for a wide range of emotional and surprising public events, such as the attacks of September 11 2001 in the United States [21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and a wide variety of other events [28][29][30][31]. In our paper, flashbulb memories were assessed for the Paris attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks perpetrated in Paris on the evening of Friday 13 November 2015.…”