Psychologists have found that emotionally vivid 'flashbulb memories,' such as memories of the September 11, 2001 attacks, are often surprisingly inaccurate despite feeling clear and detailed.
Sources
- The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/911-memory-accuracy/ (scientificamerican.com)
- https://scholars.duke.edu/publication/706668 (scholars.duke.edu)
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-flashbulb-memories-shift-certainty.html (medicalxpress.com)
More in Psychology
- In Greene and Paxton's study, participants who behaved mostly honestly showed the same reaction times whether they had an opportunity to cheat or not, and whether they won or lost money.
- University of British Columbia researchers Joe Henrich, Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan wrote a review concluding that WEIRD populations are not representative of humans as a species and are outliers on many measures.
- A 1997 study by E.N. Aron and A. Aron established a link between sensory-processing sensitivity and traits of introversion and emotionality, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- After the power-posing controversy, Amy Cuddy continued to support the theory, while Dana Carney, the first author of the original 2010 study, ultimately renounced it.
- In death investigations across 18 U.S. states from 2003–2014, approximately 9% of suicide decedents had evidence of chronic pain at the time of death.
- Only 39 of the 100 psychology studies examined in the Reproducibility Project were successfully replicated.