Sanjidah Flashbulb memories are somewhat controversial in the field of cognitive psychology, but they refer to memories, normally relating to public events, that are very vivid – like a flashbulb. You’ll hear people talking about it in a certain kind of way. People will say things like they remember where they were when they heard Princess Diana died, when the World Trade Centre terrorist attack happened, and more. It’s not always negative though; people even recall flashbulb memories about their football team winning the league1.
More recently, people will say they remember where they were and who they were with when they heard about the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown2. This is particularly interesting because memories relating to the pandemic are on an individual and global level.
Research around flashbulb memories is illuminating. One piece of research investigating when people learnt about Osama bin Laden’s assassination suggests features of memory reports decrease over time3. Flashbulb memories may be markers of social identity, i.e., Americans may believe they should remember flashbulb memories for domestic events more than international events4. Although national identity can play a role, regardless of this, people who formed flashbulb memories were likelier to think that that specific event would be remembered in the future and that the government should memorialise the event5. If we add some context to this, 23 March 2021 marked the first National Day of Reflection in the UK, one calendar year after the first lockdown was declared6.
To summarise, flashbulb memories can be conceptualised as remarkable events, and to bring it back to recent times, will the events from the last couple of nights become a flashbulb memory? Where were you when you heard about the solar storm and watched it happen?
Thanks to Z for letting me use her photos.
1 Ribeiro, Marques, Roberto & Raposo, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1116747
2 Lanciano et al., 2024. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2310554
3 Talarico, Kraha, Self & Boals, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017714835
4 Cyr, Toscano & Hirst, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000124
5 Cheriet, Topcu, Hirst, Bastin & Folville, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2023.2190570
6 Duffield & Bulbul, 2023. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/national-day-of-reflection-when-covid-lockdown-anniversary-b1068758.html
