Eysen C2. GEEK) Poyonulogy AN Inkernasionod It is influenced by situational demands (e.g., the wish to impress one’s audience) rather than by the need to be accurate Steen (199% reaction speed, and men For example, when you tell someone about what happened at a recent party, you may deliberately exaggerate your | positive contributions to its success while leaving out some of the things you did after having had too much to drink! | ‘We will focus on three important topics within every- day memory research: flashbull memories, eyewitness tes- timony, vand autobiographical memory, The study of flashbulb memories for major world events is intrinsically interesting. Research on eyewitness testimony has possibly been of more practical benefit than any other research in memory. Autobiographical memory is of direct relevance vote in those who were on dias inne, bul only fee peo or medical teasons. And and the use of mental ‘et, and wieght ha (1998 | years of muse lessons before he itive performances such asviglance, | and than asked participants to compete naif. The memory and oer deficis hs vests showed up after drinking to units of skeohol. Further research confirmec le tying bu had the greatest memory defies age of 12, andin Perspech we , Pyuwios Chapter ‘o Human mémory 323 Pre, nnd eyiaient to dicts expected on de eight, not he at succeed ren suggests th apacty m thinking aaout fod, to our everyday lives, and has been studied intensively in| Syrtaunyre diferocce n nual emory betwen her two group recent years | Ga the women wth the msc sons background did much better in extra sound- processing exoerience Flashbulb memories ean Some world events (the destruction of the ewin towers of -— the \ Trade Centre on September 11; death of Princess Diana) are 50 dramatic that they Jeave us with very vivid and detailed memories. Brown and Kulik (1977) used the term flashbulb memories to describe such memories, They argued that a special neural mechanism may be activated by such events, provided they ace seen by the individual as surprising and having real consequences for that person's life. This mechanism “prints” the derails of such events permanently int the memory system. Flashbulb memories are claimed to be accurate and very long lasting, and they often include the following categories of information: informant (person who supplied the information), place where the news was heard, ongoing event, individual's own emotional state, emotional state of others, and consequences of the event for the individual Conway et al. (1994) studied flashbulb memories for the resignation of Mrs Thatcher in 1990. Memory for this event was regarded as surprising and consequential by most British people, and so should theoretically have produced flashbulb memories. Flashbulb memories were found in 86% of British participants after 11 months, compared to 29% in other countries. The British participants were students, and Wright, Gaskell, and Muiccheartaigh (1998) wondered whether these findings could be replicated in a more representative sample. They found that only 12% of English people sampled remembered Mas Thatcher's resignation vividly 18 months afterwards. Many experts (e.g., Neisses, 1982) are sceptical about flashbulb memories for various req 5, Fits, flashbulb memories may be remembered clearly because they have been tehearsed frequently rather than because of the processing that occurred when learning about the dramatic event, Second, itis generally hard to check on'the accuracy of reported flashbulb memories, and many may be miscaken Thicd, Winningham, Hyman, and Dinnel (2000) argued that memories for dramatic events often change and develop in the first few days thereafter, and so flashbulb memo- Fies are not formed in theit entirety ac the moment when individuals learn about such events, They tested their ideas by studying American people's memory for hearing about the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. He had been an American football star, and was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goodman in 1994. The key findings of Winningham et al. came from participants who were initially ques tioned 5 hours after the acquittal verdict and who were chen retested 8 weeks later. If these participants had genuine flashbulb memories, their recollections at the two testing times should have been very similar. In fact, however, there were significant changes in shat they remembered on the two testing occasions for 7% of the participants, in part because they had learned more about the dramatic event in the first few days after the aequitral In sum, evidence for flashbulb memories has been obtained in several studies (see Bysenek, 2001), and itis clear that many people strongly believe that they have flashbulb memories for certain events. For example, 1 remember very clearly discussing a forth. coming trip to Spain with two colleagues (Martyn Barcett and Duncan Hartis) when Theard that Mrs Thatcher had resigned. However, it has proved difficult to show that flash- bulb memories differ in any important way from ordinary ;on ofthese findings in ther ‘She suggests there might be an | 5 for patients wath language | hear ast Pies Dian’ faa accident? Wy do so many people citar entered erotional and nt eves? idual anct cul event is remembered ei Flachbulls memories: