9/11, 2001 Attack on the World Trade Center,New York
at the time of a shocking event
in a person’s private or public life.
Feelings and emotional responses,
those present with them at that
time, even the exact thing they were
doing the moment before the incident can all be recorded with amazing detail. In a 2002 study on 9/11
by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press 97% of those
interviewed had a FBM for the
attacks. Interestingly 38% of
those said that for them 9/11 was
the biggest life event for that year,
which explains why so many recorded a FBM. The key for recording a
FBM is that the event is of great
personal importance and contains
high emotion and surprise alongside
drastic consequences. For the
memory to be so long lasting it needs
6
to be highly distinctive and significant. But how are these FBMs any
different from traumatic memories?
The key is that traumatic memories
contain high levels of stress caused
by anxiety or fear, which are
generally absent from FBM. This is
not to say the two are not similar.
During a traumatic event arousal
is increased, leading to increased
attention to surroundings and events
causing the memory to be more
detailed.
Much of the research into FBMs
have focused on events where
important public figures who were
loved by many have been murdered. The death of John F Kennedy