Harsch & Neisser (1992)

Harsch and Neisser (1992) was a study that demonstrated the unreliability of flashbulb memories over time.

Aim
In 1992 Neisser & Harsch challenged the prevailing belief in flashbulb memory and argued that these memories are also prone to significant distortion. The aim of the study was to determine whether flashbulb memories are susceptible to distortion

Methods

 * After the Challenge space disaster, students at Emory University were asked to recall where they were when they heard the news and wrote down an account of their experience
 * Two years later, the students were interviewed again and their responses were compared against their previous ones

Results

 * 21% of the participants originally said they heard about the disaster on TV. Two and a half years later that number rose to 45%
 * 3 of 44 students had perfect recall
 * 25% had completely inaccurate memory
 * 40% of the subjects had distorted memory
 * Possibly influenced by post-event information
 * Subjects were confident with the accuracy of their recall

Conclusion

 * The memories of the participants had changed over time
 * FBMs still deteriorate over time
 * Claim that FBMs may be ordinary memories
 * FBMs are not very reliable

Evaluation

 * A major flaw was the lack of an “ordinary memory” control to see the difference between these two memory types