“Flashbulb Memories” Consortium. Collaborative research team studying how memories of significant and/or traumatic events are altered over time

Studying how significant historical events are remembered and interpreted over time is an area of intense research interest and scientific controversy. Unlike the formation and maintenance of mundane everyday memories, it has been proposed that historically significant events are formed by a unique memory system. This memory system “photographically” encodes the event - hence the use of the term “flashbulb memories.” Some studies involving small subject numbers have suggested that flashbulb memories are also resistant to change over time and subsequent experience. Other research studies, also hampered with methodological difficulties, have challenged the idea that there is a unique flashbulb memory system.

The horrific events of September 11 present the psychology research community (and the general public) with an opportunity to better understand how our individual and collective memories are influenced by witnessing a tragedy of unprecedented magnitude. Within days of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center a consortium of memory researchers was formed to study how individual memories of this event were formed and change over time. The consortium created and circulated a survey designed to probe participants’ memories of September 11. The survey covered such topics as how participants had first learned of the attacks, the sequence of events, details as to what happened, and their emotional reactions to the event. The consortium plans to re-survey respondents after the one-year anniversary of the events.