Title: Seared in our memories
Headings: Seared in our memories
Cover Story
Seared in our memories
Opportunity—and guilt
Faulty flashbulbs?
Etched by emotion
Further reading

Content: and a different group of 18 answered them 32 weeks later. Talarico and Rubin had the different groups recount their memories at these intervals to avoid an inadvertent "rehearsal effect," in which a memory gets strengthened through each retelling. Here's what they found: The consistency and accuracy of both 9/11 flashbulb memories and everyday memories declined over time, at comparable rates. But students thought something quite different was going on. They believed that their 9/11 memories were much more accurate than their regular memories. One finding especially popped out for Rubin: People had already changed their stories of how they heard about the attacks over just a few days, from the day after the event to one week later. " Because at that point you've told 35 people how you heard about it, and it's been solidified in your memory the way you're telling it, not necessarily how it really happened," he explains. And it isn't that people just make errors of omission and forget details, notes Talarico. "