A study on the use of Flashbulb Memories features to discriminate true from fabricated autobiographical memories for negative events.

Fabiana Battista, Tiziana Lanciano, Ivan Mangiulli, Vincenzo Gattulli, Donato Impedovo, Antonietta Curci

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Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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6 authors.

Fabiana BattistaDepartment of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy. fabiana.battista@uniba.it.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4086-739X

Tiziana LancianoDepartment of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6533-1052

Ivan MangiulliDepartment of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5409-7325

Vincenzo GattulliDepartment of Informatics, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.

Donato ImpedovoDepartment of Informatics, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.

Antonietta CurciDepartment of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0932-7152

Funding

SEcurity and Rights In the CyberSpace - SERICS H93C22000620001

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Studies so far have strived to define the characteristics of autobiographical memories accounting for their veracity and accuracy. Our study aimed to test whether it is possible to distinguish between true and fabricated autobiographical memories by adopting the Flashbulb Memory Checklist (FBMC), a validated tool used to assess the phenomenological features of emotional autobiographical memories. We asked participants to first recall a negative event truly experienced in the last 12-18 months and report a negative event that they never experienced. We calculated the FBMC scores (i.e., FBM Specificity, FBM Confidence) and checked whether these would help to distinguish between true and fabricated memories for negative events. Our findings showed that FBMC scores can be informative for memories' evaluation although they do not allow a proper discrimination between the two types of memories. The legal implications of our findings are discussed.

Indexed as

EmotionsMemory, EpisodicMental RecallAdultFemaleHumansMaleYoung AdultAutobiographical memoriesFlashbulb MemoriesMemory accuracyPhenomenological featuresTrue vs. fabricated memories

Identifiers

PMID40664886

DOI10.1038/s41598-025-10640-8

PMCPMC12264266

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND

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