Confabulation

Confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive. Confabulation is distinguished from lying as there is no intent to deceive and the person is unaware the information is false. Although individuals can present blatantly false information, confabulation can also seem to be coherent, internally consistent, and relatively normal. Individuals who confabulate present incorrect memories ranging from ""subtle alterations to bizarre fabrications"", and are generally very confident about their recollections, despite contradictory evidence. Most known cases of confabulation are symptomatic of brain damage or dementias, such as aneurysm, Alzheimer's disease, or Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (a common manifestation of thiamine deficiency caused by alcoholism).Two types of confabulation are often distinguished:Provoked (momentary, or secondary) confabulations represent a normal response to a faulty memory, are common in both amnesia and dementia, and can become apparent during memory tests.Spontaneous (or primary) confabulations do not occur in response to a cue and seem to be involuntary. They are relatively rare, more common in cases of dementia, and may result from the interaction between frontal lobe pathology and organic amnesia.Another distinction is that between verbal and behavioral confabulations. Verbal confabulations are spoken false memories and are more common, while behavioral confabulations occur when an individual acts on their false memories.Confabulated memories of all types most often occur in autobiographical memory, and are indicative of a complicated and intricate process that can be led astray at any point during encoding, storage, or recall of a memory. This type of confabulation is commonly seen in Korsakoff's syndrome.