than any of the true events. In a similar study, researchers convinced participants that they had played a prank on a first grade teacher involving toy slime. In the experimental condition, researchers added self-relevant details to the story (obtained from the participants' parents), such as the name of the participant's first grade teacher and childhood best friend; in other conditions, the participants were told a more generic version of the story. When interviewed, 68.2% of participants in the self-relevant details condition reported mental images and memories of the false event, compared to only 36.4% of participants in the more generic condition. Thus, the presence of specific personal details from a participant's life greatly increase the chance that a false memory is successfully implanted. False memories and flashbulb memories False memories are also related to flashbulb memories, which are memories of one's circumstances during an emotionally charged event. Examples of flashbulb memories include how one remembers learning about the explosion of the Challenger shuttle, the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, or any other severely traumatic or outstanding event in a person's life. Early research done by Brown and Kulik (1977) found that flashbulb memories were similar to photographs because they could be described in accurate, vivid detail. In this study, participants described their circumstances about the moment they learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as well as other similar traumatic events. Participants were able to describe what they were doing, things around them, and other details. However, this data was collected just once, years after the event, and Brown and Kulik were not able to compare the accuracy of those recollections to previous descriptions to see if their memories were indeed comparable to photographs. Later studies used a research technique called repeated recall to gauge the accuracy of repeated descriptions of traumatic events. Neiser and Harsh (1992) gave participants a questionnaire about the 1986 Challenger explosion at two periods of time: 1) The day after the incident, and 2) Three years later. They found that there were often large discrepancies between the first and second descriptions. For example, many initially reported that they heard the news while sitting in class, but later said that they remember seeing the news on a television broadcast. While the participants were confident in their reports, it became evident that their memories of these emotionally charged events were prone