It’s the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and I expect to see lots of pieces about it. I’m sure some will be about the 9/11 flashbulb-memory study that tracked the changing recollections of subjects over time. Briefly, what it measured was vivid and emotionally-charged memories that weren’t true. So various researchers found things like people remembering seeing Flight 93 crashing, when no footage exists of that. Or remembering witnessing live the moment when the first plane impacted on the North Tower, which wasn’t broadcast until later. It’s a fascinating long-term study and you can read about it here, here and here.
Learning of ‘flashbulb memory’, which creates a kind of false photographic personal cognitive record of (typically horrible) things, was useful in weighing the value of my own memories in all kinds of contexts.
I have one memory in particular of something that must be entirely false, but I can still ‘see’ it in my mind’s eye and feel its emotional valence. It’s a vivid memory of being around 11 years old, sitting with my mother on the sofa in the living room of our home. Suddenly, there is a commotion upstairs, although we are alone.
