The Confabulating Mind

Confabulation denotes the recitation of memories about events and experiences that never happened. Based on multiple case examples, The Confabulating Mind provides an in-depth review of the presentations, the causative diseases, and the mechanisms of this phenomenon and compares confabulation with normal false memories, as they occur in healthy adults and children. Memory-related confabulations are compared with false statements made by patients who confuse people, places, or their own health status, as this happens in disorders like déjà vu, paramnesic misidentification, and anosognosia. One form of confabulation called behaviourally spontaneous confabulation receives particular attention. It is characterized by a confusion of reality evident from disorientation and acts according to the confabulations. Recent studies revealed a specific mechanism—orbitofrontal reality filtering—which attributes a critical role to the orbitofrontal cortex for the ability to keep thought and behaviour in phase with reality. The book concludes with an overview of current interpretations of confabulations and recommendations for future study.