Confabulation – memories that never happened

General information

The first description of confabulation belongs to the German psychiatrist K. L. Kahlbaum (dated 1866).
Kalbaum classified this type of false memories as paramnesia (a group of memory disorders and disturbances). Although in modern psychiatry there is a tendency to combine confabulations and pseudoreminiscences into one whole, these disorders have some differences - with pseudoreminiscences, memories of actually occurring events are shifted in time, and with confabulations, events appear in memories that never actually happened.

Confabulation often accompanies progressive amnesia, in which memories of real events gradually leave the patient, and the gaps in memory are filled with fictitious events. At the same time, confabulations can occur in the absence of amnesia, and the presence of gaps in memory does not necessarily imply their filling with false memories. Kinds

Based on the content of false memories, confabulations are divided into:

• Ecmnesic, in which the patient loses idea of ​​his own age and the surrounding reality, and attributes events to the past (in childhood or youth). Typically, this type of confabulation occurs with rapidly progressing amnesia.
• Mnemonic, which are characterized by false memories about current events (concerning everyday life or professional activities). This type of confabulation occurs with severe memory disorders, replacing the resulting gaps.
• Fantastic. This type of false memories is characterized by an abundance of implausible, fantastic information (often observed in paraphrenic syndrome).

Depending on their origin, confabulations are distinguished:

• Delusional. This type is associated with the patient’s delusional ideas and is not related to memory impairment or confusion. Occurs in paraphrenic and paranoid syndromes.
• Suggested. They are distinguished by their provoked nature (hint, leading questions) and are characteristic of Korsakoff's syndrome.
• Mnestic. They are of a substitutive nature (associated with memory gaps) and can be ecmnestic (relating to the past) and mnemonic (relating to the present).
• Oneiric. This type of confabulation occurs in disorders of consciousness of the productive type (intoxication, infectious and some organic psychoses, schizophrenia, oneiroid, epilepsy, etc.), and therefore reflects the theme of the underlying disease.
• Expansive. They arise in the presence of delusions of grandeur and contain confirmation of delusional ideas (about unusual physical health, wealth, etc.).
• Oneiric. This type of confabulation occurs after the disappearance of oneiroid (a qualitative disturbance of consciousness, which is accompanied by extensive dreamlike and pseudohallucinatory experiences) and reflects the theme of the experienced disorder of consciousness. Accompanies psychoses (intoxication, infectious and some organic), schizophrenia and epilepsy.

Hallucinatory confabulations are also distinguished, in which false memories arise under the influence of deception of perception (in most cases, the trigger is “voices” (verbal hallucinations)).

Confabulations can be:

• Spontaneous (primary), which arise involuntarily, and not in response to someone’s remark. Usually accompany dementia and have fantastic content.
• Provoked (secondary). They occur with amnesia, dementia and a stressful situation (in this case they are short-term).

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Confabulatory delusions [Krepelin E., 1910] are based on false imaginations, always unrealistic, but accompanied by the patient’s belief in their reality. Signs of confabulatory delusions are observed in diseases in which there are more or less long periods of amnesia filled with confabulations. Such diseases include senile, presenile and, less commonly, atherosclerotic psychoses. This delusional syndrome can also occur in some organic psychoses, characterized by increasing dementia or episodic confabulations (for example, in Korsakoff psychosis).

The phenomenological features of confabulatory delusions include the retrospective nature of its plot, a strong, unshakable conviction in the reality of the fiction, its fantastic nature, long-term retention in memory of the delusional fiction, its plot and images, the impossibility of correction or suggestive influence, affective accompaniment that gives the delusional fiction significant significance, a combination of elements fantastic fiction with facts and events that actually took place.

S. G. Zhislin (1965) distinguishes two types of confabulatory delusions depending on the nosological affiliation: occurring in organic psychoses of late age, accompanied by increasing dementia, especially memory loss (“senile confabulosis”, “senile paraphrenia”), and appearing in paraphrenic psychoses , not accompanied by a decrease in intelligence and memory impairment. It is difficult to agree with such a division, since the second option is fundamentally different not only in the “picture” of delirium, but also in its course, characterized by a tendency towards generalization and systematization of delirium.

V. M. Morozov (1975) agrees with K. Jaspers, who identifies three variants of confabulatory delusions, including false memories' with the consciousness of a memory experienced earlier and then forgotten; with the association of unusual memories with states similar to dreams or hypnosis, with a feeling of having made the recalled experiences. A. Hey et al. (1967) recall that E. Kraepelin, along with direct confabulatory fiction (delusion), described delusion based on “associative confabulations” related in meaning to memories of something heard or read long ago.

Fabulatory delusion, or “retrograde mythomania” [Serrier P., Capgras J., 1902, 1923], is identified by most authors with confabulatory delusion, which is similar in its mechanism of occurrence to delusions of imagination induced by delusions [Morozov V.M., 1975]. However, between the confabulatory delusions of German and the fabulatory delusions of French psychiatrists, one can discern some difference in the emphasis: the former consider confabulation 231 to be the main thing in the clinical picture of psychosis

Reasons for development

Confabulation in most cases is caused by memory impairment, which can occur when:

• Traumatic brain injuries. Confabulations are observed in Korsakoff syndrome in the acute period of traumatic brain injury. They may be expansive or have hypochondriacal content, but are less pronounced than in patients with alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome.
• Ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes. Vascular lesions of the brain lead to amnesia and progression of confabulations, which may be accompanied by a persistent shift in personality traits.
• Korsakoff's syndrome. This syndrome develops with a lack of vitamin B1 due to alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and malignant neoplasms (possible with brain injuries).
• Cerebral atherosclerosis in amnestic form. Accompanied by severe memory impairment and disorientation.
• Vascular dementia, which develops as a result of single infarctions of the parieto-temporo-occipital junction, limbic region, frontal lobe or thalamus.
• Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, senile dementia and psychotic forms of senile dementia. The most pronounced confabulations are in senile dementia (ecmnestic confabulations are characterized by poverty) and senile dementia.
• Pick's diseases in the initial stage (confabulations are undeveloped and stereotypical).
• Paranoid psychosis, which is characterized by systematic delusions of persecution, accompanied by hallucinations, pseudohallucinations and mental automatism. It is observed in schizophrenia, encephalitis, syphilis of the brain and some other organic diseases of the central nervous system.
• Paraphrenic syndrome, which develops with chronic mental illnesses. A distinctive feature of this symptom complex is the predominance of delusions of fantastic content of varying degrees of systematization.
• Intoxication with alcohol, drugs, carbon monoxide, manganese, psychotropic drugs.
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, HIV infection.
• Brain tumors and abscesses.

Confabulation can also be a defense mechanism, used consciously or unconsciously.

Is confabulation an independent disease?

Confabulation itself is not a disease - it is only a memory disorder that can accompany, for example, progressive amnesia. Events that actually happened are forgotten, and the gaps are filled in with fiction. However, the presence of such gaps is not necessary for the development of confabulation; it can be formed in the complete absence of amnesia.

There are several types of confabulation:

1. Classified according to content:
   ekmnestic (loss of a real idea of ​​reality);
2. mnemonic (fiction about real life);
3. fantastic (fiction with implausible facts).
4. By origin they distinguish:
   delusional;
5. unproductive (do not develop spontaneously, but are provoked by leading questions);
6. mnestic (occurs to fill gaps);
7. productive (can reproduce the theme of psychosis);
8. expansive (reflect ideas that are associated with delusions of grandeur).

Scientists argue that the cause of productive confabulations is most often the presence of amnestic symptoms. Fantastic ones, in turn, arise due to a person’s paranoid dementia, which is called fantastic paraphrenia.

Violations of information recording

The process of impaired fixation is called dysmnesia. Dysmnesia includes various types of amnesia, as well as hypermnesia and hypomnesia.

Hypermnesia is an involuntary and disorderly updating of past information. Patients experience an influx of memories of unimportant random events. Hypermnesia does not improve the productivity of thinking, but distracts a person from assimilating new information.

Hypomnesia is a weakening of memory in which all its components suffer. The patient has difficulty remembering new dates and names, quickly forgets past events, and cannot reproduce information deeply stored in memory without a reminder. The patient has to record in the form of notes important information that was previously easily remembered.

The term “amnesia” combines several disorders that are characterized by the loss of certain areas of memory. Most often, this is the loss of individual periods of time.

Types of amnesia:

• Retrograde amnesia is the loss of information about events that occurred before the onset of the disease, most often these are memories that led to immediate memory loss.
• Hysterical amnesia is completely reversible. Its name speaks for itself. Memory loss often occurs during hysterical attacks. In this case, memories lost during hysteria are restored with the help of drugs or hypnosis.
• Congrade amnesia is amnesia of switched off consciousness. This condition is not explained by the process of remembering, but by the inability to perceive information in the absence of consciousness.
• Anterograde amnesia is the loss of memories associated with the acute course of the disease. Moreover, during the illness the patient gives the impression of being a contact person, but later it turns out that he is not able to remember even the main events.
• Fixation amnesia is the loss of the ability to store memories for a long time. A person cannot remember anything he has just seen or heard, but at the same time he remembers information that occurred before the onset of the disease.
• Progressive amnesia is the loss of deep layers of information from memory due to an organic disease.

Causes

The most common cause of paramnesia is stress, overwork, and emotions. Attacks can be systemic. In this case, we can talk about organic damage to the structures of the brain and its parts responsible for memory processes.

Paramnesia can also occur for the following reasons:

• due to ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke;
• caused by cerebral palsy;
• as a result of atherosclerosis of the arteries;
• as a consequence of traumatic brain injury;
• development of schizophrenia;
• symptom of paranoid psychosis;
• with vascular dementia;
• during senile changes in personality structure;
• in case of Alzheimer's disease;
• with paraphrenic syndrome and Korsakoff's syndrome.

The psychological and functional nature of memory distortion can occur in adolescence and young adulthood. A pronounced feature of the disorder is the replacement of negative memories and facts of one’s life with the most pleasant images and events.

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Psychological reasons in this case can be considered an inferiority complex or a feeling of inferiority of a person’s personality.

Distortion can be diagnosed against the background of the insolvency of the individual, his susceptibility to self-hypnosis and outside influences. Usually such people are very dependent on the opinions of others; they trust advertising and all the stereotypes formed in society.

False memories in such people arise as a result of external negative influences to which they are acutely susceptible.

Making a correct diagnosis can be complicated by the presence of a serious mental illness, similar in symptoms to this pathology, which can cause significant harm to the psychological health of the individual. Such diseases include schizophrenia, delusions and hallucinations in manic-depressive syndrome.

Symptoms and diagnosis

The main symptom, as already mentioned, is passing off facts from the past as the present. The patient fills in the existing gaps with events that happened before. Facts about what did not happen can also be added, but they are always of a secondary nature.

Diagnosis is aimed primarily at identifying the underlying disease. It may include the following examinations and tests:

• collecting anamnesis, asking about the time of onset of symptoms and concomitant disorders;
• a series of psychological tests to understand the perception of reality and evaluate memory;
• magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to assess its functional state;
• general blood test, biochemical and for toxins;
• electroencephalography;
• CT scan;
• Consultations with a neurologist, neurosurgeon and other doctors are necessary.

Differential diagnosis is carried out with delusions and true hallucinations, disorders that accompany manic-depressive syndrome, however, unlike paramnesia, they cannot be corrected.

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Classification and symptoms

Paramnesia is a fairly broad concept, and it includes many qualitative changes in memory.

All these types were allocated into a separate classification:

1. Pseudo-reminiscence (ancient Greek ψευδο- - false, lat. reminiscentia - memory) implies the transfer of past events to the present. A person with this disorder describes facts that actually happened to him, but not related to the situation in the present. This disorder usually occurs in dementia, Korsakoff's syndrome, and other conditions characterized by hypomnesia.
2. Confabulation. Its symptoms are the distortion of memories due to the introduction of fictitious elements into them.

Confabulations, in turn, are divided into:

• ecmenestic (memory illusions focus on the past);
• mnemonic (illusions that are associated with the present);
• fantastic (imaginary details are used in memory);
• delusional (transfer of fantastic delirium to earlier periods of the onset of the disease);
• oneiric ones are provoked by oneiroid, delirium, twilight delirium;
• spontaneous - confabulations accompanying Korsakov's syndrome;
• Suggested ones occur in Alzheimer's disease.

• Phantasms are those memories that underlie the manifestations of hallucinations. Phantasms usually occur in people suffering from schizophrenia. A distinctive feature is the crudeness and absurdity of the memories, and sometimes they have an intriguing plot.
• Reduplicative amnesia or otherwise dual perception. The term was described by the Czech psychiatrist A. Pik in 1991 (a person experiences the same events several times). A type of such dual perception is echonesia, in which a person is sure that the facts of his life are repeated and experiences multiply in real life. Echomnesia occurs in a person who exhibits paralysis, psychosis and many other disorders.
• False recognition is failure to recognize a face or object, familiar terrain, premises, or one’s own reflection in the mirror. If the violation is very strong, the person will not recognize his closest and dearest people. False recognitions are common in schizophrenia.

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Treatment

Currently, there is no specific drug treatment that could restore memory processes, since there is no proven and tested pharmacological agent.

Indirect treatment methods are mainly used, among which the following are worth noting:

Treatment must be carried out under conditions of clinical observation; constant registration of all changes is necessary. Treatment depends on the specific features of the underlying pathology that the person suffers from. In addition to nootropics that speed up the functioning of nerve cells, vitamins and antioxidants are prescribed. It is also important to ensure and create a favorable environment around the patient. The patient should be limited from any factors that provoke stress.

Confabulation is a memory disorder that refers to a person's false memories of events that happened to him, which are transferred to another time and connected with fictitious facts. The classic definition of the term was introduced by the German psychiatrist, author of the doctrine of catatonia, K. L. Kahlbaum. He believed that confabulation has a connection with a mental disorder (paramnesia), which consists in the fact that the patient talks about invented events that have never happened to him in his life. This is how confabulation differs from pseudoreminiscence, which is another type of paramnesia and manifests itself in a displacement in the memory of events that actually occur, but at a completely different time.

Confabulations and pseudo-reminiscences are two concepts that at first glance reflect very similar things. Confabulation is also called a hallucination of memory, and pseudoreminiscence is also called the illusion of memory. Modern psychiatrists combine the two concepts of confabulation and pseudo-reminiscence into one term - confabulation, defining it as a memory disorder, which is often accompanied by progressive amnesia (situations that actually happened are forgotten), and the resulting memory gaps are filled with inventions.

Gaps in the patient’s memory can be filled with inventions, but, nevertheless, the presence of these gaps is not at all necessary for confabulation to occur; it can form in the absence of hypomnesia and amnesia. Fiction often has fantastic content, although not always. Another possible phenomenon is confabulation confusion, an influx of confabulations that is accompanied by human disorientation.

Human memory has reconstructive properties, therefore, with its help, in the process of remembering, the brain recreates events, using information acquired after them.

Confabulation can be detected not only during the experience of mental illness, but also during a healthy mental life. It is a conscious action in the case where someone intentionally adds to the memory of events, or it can be an unconscious action in the case where the falsification is a defense mechanism.

Differences from other types of amnesia and paramnesia

In psychiatric practice, the following main types of amnesia are distinguished:

• anterograde and retrograde . With these types, information is erased until the disease occurs;
• anterograde : the patient cannot perceive information after the onset of the disease;
• Korsakoff's syndrome : a severe form of memory loss characterized by acute deficiency of vitamin B1;
• fixation : characterized by the inability to retain new information;
• perforated : information is partially accumulated;
• traumatic : is a consequence of a head injury, accompanied by the disappearance from memory of facts relating to the patient’s personal life;
• children's : no memories of early childhood.

The fundamental difference between other types of amnesia and pseudoreminiscences, as well as other types of paramnesia, is that with the latter only distortion of memories occurs. In most amnesias, memories are lost completely.

Pseudo-reminiscence is characterized only by the displacement of events in time, while they actually happened, but most often earlier than the person talks about it. It also happens vice versa, events are transferred to a more distant period of time.

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The disorders are typical for people of mature age who have disturbances in the functioning of the central nervous system. They often appear as part of Korsakoff's syndrome.

Cryptomnesia - fictitious events are presented to patients as real. In some cases they may be taken from literature or a feature film. Sometimes such a diagnosis is given to people who talk in detail about the events they experienced in a past life.

Confabulations - the other side of the same coin

Confabulations – in these types of disorders, hallucinations are presented as real facts. There are several types of disorder. There are two main classifications. By content:

• mnemonic – fiction about current events;
• ekmnestic , in which a shift into the past occurs;
• fantastic ones contain many fictitious facts.

The violation is also classified by origin:

• suggested - provoked by hints or leading questions;
• delusional – arise as a consequence of delusional ideas;
• mnestic - replace gaps in memory;
• oneiric – caused by disturbances of consciousness of a non-productive type;
• expansive - characterized by ideas of delusions of grandeur, the patient tries to show himself as a brilliant inventor, intellectually gifted, excessively rich, and so on.

The main difference between confabulation and pseudo-reminiscence is that the first is a memory hallucination (that is, the event did not happen at all), and the second is an illusion (the event happened, but at the wrong time).

Cryptomnesia, confabulations and pseudoreminiscences represent the same problem, only slightly modified.

Distinctions are made for correct understanding and adequate communication with the patient in order to avoid a negative reaction and distinguish real events from fictitious ones. This is also required for correct diagnosis, and therefore treatment of memory disorders.

What is confabulation

In psychology, confabulation is false memories of invented or really existing (but it is not clear at what time) events. It can be a consequence of the work of defense mechanisms or be a suggestion.

The concept of “confabulation” translated from Latin means “fiction”. And in fact, confabulation in psychology is the instillation of fantasies into the memory and filling in memory gaps with them.

Thus, a person suffering from this disorder talks about what happened to him and what places he visited, while everyone knows well that this has never happened.

The causes of confabulations are possible memory impairments that occur with organic brain damage. The more well-known causes of this disorder are unknown, but there is clear evidence that damage to the forebrain leads to memory impairment, and if the frontal lobes are damaged, problems with self-awareness can occur. That is, the patient may not even realize that he has problems with memory deficit. Traumatic and acquired brain injuries (aneurysms, tumors) can cause confabulation, as well as psychological and mental disorders (schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease).

Confabulation, being a special type of psychopathological syndrome called confabulation, is observed in a variety of mental disorders and diseases. The stories of patients with this disorder are very fantastic, and are filled with detailed descriptions of various details. Patients talk about their incredible adventures, heroic deeds, great discoveries and successes that they allegedly experienced in the past. When the patient returns from such a state, he remembers his entire story and can evaluate it quite critically. Confabulations last longer if a person has schizophrenia, and they remain most persistent in old age with dementia.

Confabulation after alcohol helps a person to relax and reveal his hidden accentuations of mental illness and latent character traits, which practically do not appear when sober and remain invisible. The phenomenon of confabulation after alcohol must be taken seriously in assessing the objectivity and reliability of incoming information; it must be analyzed and the possibility of hidden accentuations by the partner taken into account.

Treatment of confabulation is carried out by psychotherapists (psychiatrists) using cognitive rehabilitation.

Treatment for confabulation involves techniques aimed at helping people become aware of their unrealistic memories and beliefs. It happens that this condition goes away on its own over time, however, for a long-term effect and restoration of normal functioning of the human brain, certain neuropsychological rehabilitation measures are required, including:

— psychological support and therapeutic accompaniment of the patient;

- treatment of diseases and various disorders that arose in connection with the disorder;

- active lifestyle;

- maintaining a normal sleep schedule;

— exclusion of any emotional and intellectual stress;

- regular memory training exercises;

- exclusion from the diet of substances that are harmful and destructive to the body and memory processes (drugs that inhibit the activity of the central nervous system, alcohol and drugs).

Various medical reference books, manuals on psychology and psychiatry indicate that the treatment of confabulation begins with studying the etiology of the disease and only taking this into account a course is prescribed. That is, they begin to treat not the effect, but the cause itself, the disease that provoked this condition. Symptomatic therapy prescribed by neurologists and psychiatrists does not have a single scheme or strategy, since it is focused on treatment, depending on the clinical picture individually for each client.

Preventive measures for impaired memory processes are of no small importance. First of all, this means maintaining a healthy lifestyle, prohibiting alcohol, even low-alcohol products, limiting the use of medications not prescribed by a doctor. Proper nutrition plays an important role, with the help of which you can create a diet of healthier foods and maintain a balance of all necessary vitamins and minerals. To prevent relapses, the patient is prescribed special training aimed at strengthening and developing memory.

Types of confabulations

Confabulations are symptoms of various mental disorders and are combined with memory impairments of various levels; they are distinguished depending on their content and origin.

Content confabulations are:

- ecmnestic (from a past life) - this is a shift of events into the past, the patient’s loss of ideas about the surrounding reality and his age;

- mnemonic - these are fictions about the events of a current life situation;

- fantastic - this is information of an implausible and fantastic nature, which often manifests itself in paraphrenic syndrome.

Confabulations by origin are:

- delusional: they arise in connection with delusional thoughts, suggestions and ideas that arise in the patient and are not related to memory impairment or clouding of consciousness;

— unproductive (suggested): do not appear spontaneously, provoked by hints and leading questions, may be a manifestation of Korsakov’s syndrome;

- replacement mnestic: they appear to replace memory gaps and are divided into ecmnestic (related to the past) and mnemonic (confabulations related to the present);

- oneiric: caused by disturbances of consciousness of a productive type, reflect the theme of experienced psychosis in infectious, intoxicating and certain organic psychoses, in epilepsy, schizophrenia, oneiroid, hallucinosis and other disorders;

- expansive: reflect obsessions associated with delusions of grandeur (ideas of oneself as an extremely healthy and physically strong, intellectually developed, brilliant, rich, inventive person, of high origin).

Treatment includes:

• treatment of the underlying disease that caused the development of confabulations;
• using psychological methods to restore memory and adapt the patient;
• the use of nootropic drugs that accelerate the recovery of the central nervous system and improve blood circulation;
• use of vitamins and antioxidants.

Forms of confabulation

Confabulation has three forms.

1. Pathology that occurs due to confusion. It is designed to cover up real traces of memories, and is used by patients to hide the fact of ignorance of information that, in their opinion, is generally known.
2. A disorder designed to fill memory gaps.
   This form is manifested by existing knowledge going beyond the boundaries, which is necessary to mask certain defects. For example, patients talk abundantly about facts, filling them with details that did not actually exist. Most often this refers to events that have never happened, but the patient is sure that they happened recently.
3. The third form is considered to be fantastic confabulation, which does not intersect with reality and has no logical support.
   Most often this is an unstable delusional fiction. A similar condition is typical for patients with paranoid disorder. The development of information occurs through the creation of ever new incredible episodes, displacing the previously created fantastic confabulation.

Confabulation

K. L. Kahlbaum, German psychiatrist who first described confabulations.

Confabulation (lat. confābulārī - chat, tell) - false memories in which facts that were in reality or modified are transferred to another (often in the near) time and can be combined with completely fictitious events.

In the classical understanding, introduced into psychiatry in 1866 by K. L. Kahlbaum, confabulations are a type of paramnesia, which consists in the fact that the patient reports fictitious events that never took place in his life. This distinguishes confabulations from pseudoreminiscences, another type of paramnesia, in which a shift occurs in the memory of events that actually occurred, but at a different time. Confabulations are sometimes figuratively called “memory hallucinations” (in contrast to pseudoreminiscences - “illusions of memory”). However, in modern psychiatry there is a tendency to combine confabulations and pseudoreminiscences under the general term “confabulations”.

Thus, confabulations are commonly understood as memory disorders that often accompany progressive amnesia: events that actually took place are amnesic (“forgotten”), and emerging gaps in memory are filled in with fictions. Confabulations can fill in the patient’s memory gaps, however, the presence of memory gaps is not at all necessary for the formation of confabulations: they can be formed in the absence of amnesia and hypomnesia. The content of confabulations is often fantastical, but this is not always necessary. In addition, an influx of confabulations is also possible, accompanied by disorientation (confabulatory confusion).

What are false memories?

Confabulation is a type of paramnesia (false memories mixing the past with the present), in which a person “remembers” events that never happened in reality.

Pathology is caused, to one degree or another, by the inability to perceive, store and reproduce actual facts. For the most part, this disorder is characteristic of progressive amnesia - when a patient who does not remember real facts fills in the memory gaps with fiction.

At first glance, confabulations have a lot in common with pseudo-reminiscences. But in the second case, the patient only shifts events from the past to the present, and in the case of confabulation, these events did not happen at all. As a rule, both of these concepts are combined into one, and most often the term confabulation is used in relation to them.

For example, a patient who has not moved around the city beyond the nearest store for many months tells with delight how last week he went on a personal invitation to visit Michael Jackson. At the same time, the fact that the King of Pop has been dead for several years does not bother him at all.

This demonstrates the complete inability for critical thinking that is characteristic of this disorder.

But it would be a big misconception to think that calculating confabulation is as easy as shelling pears . In most situations this is true, but it is not always the case that patients dine with the president or fight alien monsters. In a number of cases, a person deliberately fantasizes, and his lie does not go beyond the usual. All fictitious events most often act as a psychological defensive reaction.

The video will tell you what confabulations are, or the effect of false memories (in examples):

Classification

Confabulations, as a rule, are a symptom of various mental illnesses and can be combined with memory impairments of varying depth and severity, orientation in time and space, and in some cases, thinking.

There are confabulations:

1. By content:
   ecmnestic confabulations of a past life - a shift of the situation into the past, that is, the loss of the patient’s real understanding of the surrounding reality and his own age;
2. mnemonic - fiction about the events of current (ordinary) life;
3. fantastic - replete with implausible, fantastic information, often occurs with paraphrenic syndrome;
4. By origin:
   delusional - arise in connection with delusional ideas that occur in the patient, and are not associated with memory impairment or clouding of consciousness;
5. suggested (unproductive) - arising not spontaneously, but being provoked by a hint, leading questions, are a manifestation of Korsakov's syndrome.
6. mnestic (replacement, confabulations of memory) - arise to replace memory gaps, are divided into ecmnestic (relating to the past) and mnemonic (relating to the present);
7. oneiric - caused by disorders of consciousness of a productive type, reflect the theme of psychosis suffered during intoxication, infectious, some organic psychoses, schizophrenia, epilepsy, hallucinosis, oneiroid, etc.;
8. expansive - reflect ideas associated with delusions of grandeur, for example, unusual physical health, intellectual talent, genius, wealth, high birth, invention, etc.

Normal or disorder?

Almost all of us have experienced confabulation to one degree or another. This applies to quotes from films and historical events that we witnessed.

The simplest example of confabulation in healthy people is inventing events or places. Or chronological confusion in the time of what happened. Surely, you have come across a friend’s phrase: “Remember, you told me about this?” Of course, you don’t remember, because this never happened.

Of course, confabulations can also be a symptom of a mental disorder. For example, as a delusional component of schizophrenia (stories about a worldwide conspiracy, buried treasure). A person suffering from schizophrenia in the acute stage has poor orientation in time and space. In bipolar personality disorder, confabulations are specific to the manic stage, when the person is in an agitated state. And in clinical depression, confabulation can act as a defense mechanism.

Diagnosis and treatment

Spontaneous confabulations, due to their involuntary nature, cannot be controlled in a laboratory setting. However, induced confabulations can be examined in different theoretical contexts. The mechanisms underlying evoked confabulations can be applied to spontaneous confabulation mechanisms. The basic premise of confabulation research is to look for errors and biases in human memory tests.

Deese-Rodiger-McDermott experiment

Confabulation can be detected using the Dees-Rodiger-McDermott experiment. Participants listen to an audio recording of several lists of thematically related words. Participants will then be asked to recall the words on their list. If a participant recalls a word that was never listed, it is considered a confabulation.

Recognition tasks

Confabulation can also be studied using continuous recognition tasks. Typically, in a recognition task, participants are quickly presented with images. Some of these images are shown once, others are shown multiple times. Participants press a key if they have seen the image before. After a certain period of time, participants repeat the task. More errors in the second task, compared to the first, indicate confusion, which suggests false memories.

Memory tasks

Confabulation can also be detected using a recall task. Participants are asked to recall stories (semantic or autobiographical) that are very familiar to them. These histories are coded to identify errors that can be classified as memory biases. Distortions may include falsifying true elements of a story or including details from an entirely different story. Errors such as these will indicate confabulation.

Treatment

Treatment of confabulation depends to some extent on the cause or source, if one can be identified. For example, treatment for Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome involves high doses of vitamin B to correct thiamine deficiency. If there is no known physiological cause, more general cognitive techniques are used to treat confabulation. A case study published in 2000 showed that self-control training reduced confounding. Although this treatment appears promising, more rigorous studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of self-management therapy in the general patient population.

> See also

• Paraphrenia