Brown & Kulik(1977)

Brown & Kulik's (1977) original study was based on questionnaires given to 80 participants. The participants were given a series of nine events - for example, the assassination of President Kennedy - and asked if they "recalled the circumstances in which you first heard about the event." For those events in which they said "yes," they were then asked to write an account of their memory and rate it on a scale of personal importance.

Brown and Kulik found that people said that they had very clear memories of where they were, what they did, and what they felt when they first learned about an important public occurrence such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King. 90% of the participants recalled the circumstances in which they heard about the assassination of the president - thirteen years after the event.

People in the study were also asked if they had flashbulb memories of personal events. Of 80 participants, 73 said that they had flashbulb memories associated with a personal shock, such as the sudden death of a close relative.

Brown & Kulik observed a much lower rate of flashbulb memories among white participants than black participants to the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. This shows that the link between personal importance and the event is important in the creation of a flashbulb memory.

Limitation

First, there is no way to determine whether the memories stated by the participants are accurate. There was also no way to test the individual's level of surprise upon hearing the event. Although it can be assumed that the participants would have been surprised to hear about the assassination of a public official, this emotional response cannot be measured.

Finally, because of the national importance of these events, the probability that demand characteristics affected the results is very high. Do you remember the assassination of our president? Of course, you do.

Brown & Kulik（1977年）的原始研究基于对80名参与者的问卷调查。参与者获得了一系列九个事件——例如，肯尼迪总统被暗杀——并被问及他们是否“回忆起你第一次听说该事件的情况”。对于那些他们说“是”的事件，然后要求他们写下自己的记忆，并按个人重要性进行评分。

布朗和库利克发现，人们说，他们对他们在哪里、做了什么以及他们第一次得知约翰·F·肯尼迪或马丁·路德·金被暗杀等重要公开事件时的感受有非常清晰的记忆。90%的参与者回忆起他们在事件发生13年后听到总统被暗杀的情况。

研究中的人还被问及他们是否有个人事件的闪光记忆。在80名参与者中，73人表示，他们有与个人震惊相关的闪光记忆，例如近亲的突然死亡。

Brown & Kulik观察到，与暗杀Malcolm X和Martin Luther King Jr.的黑人参与者相比，白人参与者的闪光灯记忆率要低得多。这表明，个人重要性和事件之间的联系在创建闪光灯记忆中很重要。

这项原始研究有几个相当重要的局限性。

首先，没有办法确定参与者陈述的记忆是否准确。听了这件事后，也没有办法测试个人的惊讶程度。虽然可以假设参与者在听到一名公职人员被暗杀时会感到惊讶，但这种情绪反应是无法衡量的。

最后，由于这些事件具有国家重要性，需求特征影响结果的概率非常高。你还记得我们总统被暗杀吗？当然，你会的。