Key Study

Neisser & Harsch (1992)

Memories of the Challenger space-shuttle disaster

To remind you of the space shuttle disaster click on BBC News in Pictures

Aims

Procedures

A questionnaire was administered to 106 participants on the day after the space-shuttle exploded (Jan 1996). Among the questions asked were 5 about how they heard the news: where they were, what they were doing, who told them, what time it occurred etc. Thirty-two months later the participants were asked to complete the questionnaire again and their results compared to the original.

Findings

The findings showed that memories had in fact dimmed. Of a potential 220 ‘facts’ produced in the original questionnaire, they were partially or completely wrong on 150 of them. Interestingly participants were not aware of this fall off in performance, being highly confident in their ability to recall accurately.

Conclusions

A conclusion of the study is that so-called ‘flash-bulb memories are no more accurate than other memories. The results suggest that what is different is the confidence that people have in their memories associated with significant events.

Evaluation

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