Berntsen & Thomsen (2005)

Bertnsen & Thomsen (2005) was a study that demonstrated that surprise may not be necessary for the creation of flashbulb memories.

Aim
To discover the extent to which surprise contributes to the founding of flashbulb memories.

Procedure
The sample was 145 Danes between 72 and 89 years of age. They were  obtained through a network sampling method. The participants were asked for their memories of first hearing the news of the Danish occupation (April 1940) and liberation (May 1945). They were also asked to indicate what their role was in the war: collaborator, resistance or simply citizen in an occupied territory.

They were also asked for detailed descriptions of their most positive and most negative memories from the war. The participants were asked to link their personal memories to a specific event during the war.

After this information was gathered, the researchers gave them a questionnaire which asked for specific factual details about occupation and the liberation that could be matched to historical data. A younger control group was given the exact same questions in a short questionnaire titled “Historical Details From World War II."

For example, participants were asked to describe the weather; they were also asked whether it was a workday or a Sunday and, if a workday, which day of week it was. For the liberation, they were also asked for the time of the radio announcement of the German capitulation.

Results
Almost all the participants in the sample of Older Danes reported memories for the invasion and liberation. Their answers to factual questions - for example, the weather, the day of the week, the time of the announcement - were compared to historical records as well as the answers from a younger control group. The older participants were far more accurate; on average, they provided accurate answers to 55% of the questions vs 11% in the control group.

Participants with reported ties to the resistance movement had more vivid, detailed, and accurate memories than did participants without such ties. Ratings of surprise were unrelated to the accuracy and clarity of the memories.

Discussion

 * Appears to support the theory of flashbulb memory presented by Brown & Kulik
 * Does not support Brown & Kulik's conjecture that surprise is a key factor
 * Absence of a control group means that we don't know how much of the testimonies were just guessed
 * The study uses a network sample, meaning that all the participants knew each other and may have discussed it with each other, contributing to the pervasion of misinformation