flashbulb memory

a vivid, enduring memory associated with a personally significant and emotional event, often including such details as where the individual was or what he or she was doing at the time of the event. People often believe that such memories have the quality of a photograph taken at the moment they experienced the event, and they believe with high confidence that these memories are accurate. However, recent research has shown that although flashbulb memories are more likely to be retained than the memory of an everyday event, they are not always accurate. [first described in 1977 by U.S. psychologists Roger Brown and James Kulik (1940– ) in their study of people’s recollection of public events, such as U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s assassination]

Browse dictionary by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Psychology term of the day

April 26th 2024

general paresis

dementia associated with advanced neurosyphilitic infection of the brain (see neurosyphilis), a condition that is now extremely rare because syphilis is usually diagnosed and treated in its early stages. The first symptoms of general paresis appear 5 to 30 years after the primary infection. Psychological signs are irritability, confusion, fatigue, and forgetfulness, followed by headaches, confabulation, and deterioration in behavior and judgment. If untreated with antibiotics, physical signs gradually develop, including Argyll Robertson pupils, sagging facial muscles, vacant expression, slurred speech, poor handwriting, and locomotor ataxia, followed by inability to dress, paralysis, convulsions, loss of bladder and bowel control, and gradual deterioration to a vegetative state. General paresis was formerly known as general paralysis of the insane, dementia paralytica, paralytic dementia, and paretic psychosis. Also called general paralysis.