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Discuss The Fbm Theory

827 Words4 Pages

Pedro Kuzma
Mr. Mangual
IB Psychology
9 december 2015

Evaluate one theory of how emotion may affect one cognitive process

Cognition can be defined as the set of mental abilities and processes we have that relate to our knowledge, attention, memory, reasoning and all of the processes that go on in our brain. It can be: conscious or unconscious, concrete or abstract and intuitive or conceptual. Cognition can also use the existing knowledge we have to generate new knowledge. The Cognitive level of analysis studies the processes of our mind and how our cognitive processes guide our behavior. Our emotions can have a huge impact on our cognition, and the Flashbulb Memory Theory by Brown and Kulik (1977) demonstrates that.
Flashbulb memories (FBM) are a special kind of memories that are influenced by emotion. Memories linked with highly emotional events seem to be recorded in the brain like a photo, …show more content…

This theory explains to us why some of our memories are more vivid than others, and can be remembered better over time, although it can't quite explain why these memories are sometimes no more accurate than others. The FBM theory has been the basis for many researches and studies, and has been modified with time, due to new discoveries. The central idea of the theory, stating that emotional events are remembered better than non-emotional ones has been proven and is accepted, but only as long as these events have some personal relevance. There are also some limitations to this theory. The name of the theory, "Flashbulb" memory, has been proven to transmit the wrong idea. This name suggests that the memory is saved as a photo, which has been proven to be wrong, by Neisser and Harsch. Also, FBM, is a reconstructed memory, and as the memory involves the person's emotion, this may affect the way the memory is reconstructed, especially if it is discussed with other people, or if the event does not have any particular personal

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