World News for Students of English

14-09-2026 15:00

A flashbulb memory is a vivid recollection of learning about a major, highly emotional public event, such as the September 11 terror attacks. Although people feel absolute confidence in these memories, research shows they are not entirely accurate.

Memories are dynamic; each time a person retrieves one, the hippocampus updates it with new information from media or conversations. In fact, studies reveal that people alter roughly 40 percent of their personal details within a year. Unlike regular memories, emotional events activate the amygdala, which focuses attention and embeds the experience more strongly. These memories also strengthen social connection, because they create a shared sense of identity among groups.

Even prominent figures, including President George W. Bush, have famously mixed up the timeline of how they learned about the 9/11 attacks due to repeated exposure to news footage. Because modern media is highly fragmented, widespread flashbulb memories shared by whole nations may become less common in the future.

Difficult words: vivid (producing very clear, detailed, and bright pictures in your mind), dynamic (constantly changing, active, or developing rather than staying the same), retrieve (to find and bring back information from memory or storage), embed (to fix something firmly and deeply into something else).

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