Flashbulb Memories: Fictive Reconstructions of Lived Experiences
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Document Type
Contribution to a Book
Publication Title
Playing with Reality: Denying, Manipulating, Converting, and Enhancing What is There
Editor
Sidney Homan
DOI
10.4324/9781003256601-20
First Page
149
Last Page
156
Abstract
Christina Y. Tzeng and Walter R. Jacobs in “Flashbulb Memories: Fictive Reconstructions of Lived Experiences” ask: why are our “recollections of circumstances surrounding a shocking, highly-charged” event at once “incredibly vivid but inaccurate”? That is, in attempting to speak of what happened, we unconsciously add events, details, large and small, that have no basis in the truth. This all-too-human conversion of the past to a semifiction may be partly attributed to the effects of stress on the brain. The authors offer personal accounts of such “misremembered details” as they recollect the Space Challenger explosion in 1986 and the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers.
Department
Psychology
Recommended Citation
Christina Tzeng and Walter Jacobs. "Flashbulb Memories: Fictive Reconstructions of Lived Experiences" Playing with Reality: Denying, Manipulating, Converting, and Enhancing What is There (2022): 149-156. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003256601-20
