Monitor on Psychology - September 2011 - (Page 64)

The most beautiful September morning. I drove to the hardware store to buy bulbs. Coming out, I felt a boom and saw a large mushroom cloud. Going into the Starbucks, I heard the barista shouting. When I finally made sense of what he was saying, I knew what had happened. I moved the television to the back garden and started planting my bulbs. I was so tense I called the high school and told them to send my son home. We planted hundreds of bulbs in silence; only the television talked. When I picked up my other son from school, I was shaking as I greeted the school director. Without any spoken question, she looked at me and said, “All of our children are being picked up by the parents today.” It was a long day. We were quiet. And, we never ate dinner. —PRoGRAM MANAGER, WAShiNGToN, D.C. earlier in the summer of 2001. She scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging as they retrieved the memories, then asked them questions about such flashbulb-like characteristics as memory vividness and emotional arousal. A marked difference emerged between participants who were in downtown Manhattan, close to the towers, and those who were farther away, in midtown. All participants showed activity in the hippocampus — the brain area known for its involvement in day-to-day memory — when recalling the non-9/11 memory. The midtown participants also activated the hippocampus when recalling their 9/11 memory. But when downtown participants recalled the attacks, it lit up their amygdala — the brain area known for its role in making emotional memories. “We know that the hippocampus is an important region for contextual memory, so it makes sense that it’s used for recalling details of a neutral scene,” says Phelps. Likewise, it makes sense that the amygdala plays a key part in forming emotionally charged flashbulb memories, she says. “The amygdala trains your attention on this emotionally arousing information to the exclusion of everything else around you,” says Phelps. “And emotion, we know from previous research, helps you store memories. So that’s how you get the flashbulb — the strong memory for a few, vivid details.” While the downtown participants reported vivid sights, smells and sounds, midtowners reported watching news coverage on television or the Internet, just like people in the rest of the country. Accuracy aside, this is where some other flashbulb studies have missed the mark — they haven’t looked carefully enough at the important role of emotional arousal and at how many more vivid details people recall when high emotions are involved, says veteran memory researcher James McGaugh, PhD, founding director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California–Irvine. 9/11: A media-shaped memory? Americans, for the most part, quite clearly recall the facts of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, right down to how many planes were hijacked, where they hit and which airlines were involved. they remember much less about the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. That’s not just because it happened a longer time ago, says psychologist William Hirst, PhD, a memory researcher at the new School for Social research. In a Lexis nexis analysis, Hirst found that major media outlets barely covered the Challenger compared with the barrels of ink and millions of pixels they’ve devoted to 9/11. “To the extent that the media continues to talk about 9/11, the more our memories of the attacks are solidified,” says Hirst. “We as a society came to believe that we have to talk about this all the time. We decided that this will be important, with an accompanying memory-strengthening effect.” Memory researcher David rubin, PhD, agrees. television images of the falling towers and smoking Pentagon were so compelling, he says, that it’s common for people to mistakenly think they learned of the attacks on television, rather than from a friend. this pattern was first found in research by psychologists Ulric neisser, PhD, and nicole Harsch, PhD, published in the book “Affect and Accuracy in recall: Studies of ‘Flashbulb Memories’” (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Two years after the Challenger disaster, almost half of 42 Emory University students surveyed by the researchers claimed they’d learned of the incident on television. only a fifth of them made that claim right after the explosion. “Seeing it on tv is riveting and having a friend tell you about it is not riveting,” explains rubin. “You feel like a part of history saying you saw it live, when really it was the 16th replay.” —B. MuRRAy LAW 64 Monitor on psychology • septeMber 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - September 2011

Monitor on Psychology - September 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Supreme Court hears psychologists on prison and video game cases
Antipsychotics are overprescribed in nursing homes
New MCAT likely to recognize the mind-body connection
A $2 million boost for military and families
In Brief
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS UPDATE
On Your Behalf
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
TIME CAPSULE
QUESTIONNAIRE
Speaking of Education
SCIENCE WATCH
An uncertain future for American workers
Advocating for psychotherapy
PRACTICE PROFILE
ETHICALLY SPEAKING
Seared in our memories
Helping kids cope in an uncertain world
APA and Nickelodeon team up
Muslims in America, post 9/11
Bin Laden’s death
‘They expect us to be there’
Answering the call of public policy
Candidates answer final questions
APA News
Division Spotlight
New leaders
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
Disaster relief training
Honoring teaching excellence
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - September 2011