Worldwide events such as the Covid-19 pandemic have the power to outline people’s life pathways and memories for experiences, shaping both personal, collective, and historical narratives. Autobiographical memory is essential to enable people to approach future events with greater consciousness and learn from past circumstances. The unprecedented distinctiveness of the Covid-19 pandemic gave us the opportunity to explore the features of both collective and personal memory, such as Flashbulb Memories (FBMs). When a significant, impactful, and unexpected public event takes place, individuals tend to retain not only the details surrounding the event itself, but also irrelevant and peripheral details related to the context in which they received the news, such as date, location, informant, ongoing activity, or others present. In the realm of autobiographical memory, FBMs are determined by both emotional (i.e., intensity of emotional feeling, appraisal of the original event, importance-consequentiality) and social (social sharing, rumination, mass media) factors which give these memories high vividness, confidence, and consistency over time. The present chapter will overview the main empirical evidence about the features of FBM for public events such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The Flashbulb-Like Nature of Memories for the Covid-19 Pandemic

  • Tiziana Lanciano,
  • Antonietta Curci

摘要

Worldwide events such as the Covid-19 pandemic have the power to outline people’s life pathways and memories for experiences, shaping both personal, collective, and historical narratives. Autobiographical memory is essential to enable people to approach future events with greater consciousness and learn from past circumstances. The unprecedented distinctiveness of the Covid-19 pandemic gave us the opportunity to explore the features of both collective and personal memory, such as Flashbulb Memories (FBMs). When a significant, impactful, and unexpected public event takes place, individuals tend to retain not only the details surrounding the event itself, but also irrelevant and peripheral details related to the context in which they received the news, such as date, location, informant, ongoing activity, or others present. In the realm of autobiographical memory, FBMs are determined by both emotional (i.e., intensity of emotional feeling, appraisal of the original event, importance-consequentiality) and social (social sharing, rumination, mass media) factors which give these memories high vividness, confidence, and consistency over time. The present chapter will overview the main empirical evidence about the features of FBM for public events such as the Covid-19 pandemic.