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Self-serving confabulation in prose recall.

Aikaterini Fotopoulou1, Martin A Conway, Mark Solms

  • 1King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, UK. a.fotopoulou@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Neuropsychologia
|February 29, 2008
PubMed
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Confabulating patients exhibit a positive bias in memory recall, particularly for negative self-referent information. This suggests memory retrieval deficits allow motivational factors to influence recall, exaggerating normal self-serving memory distortions.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Memory Research

Background:

  • Confabulation, the production of false or distorted memories without the intention to deceive, is often characterized by positive and self-enhancing content.
  • Previous research suggests a general positive bias in confabulated memories, but its specificity to self-referent information remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether the positive bias in confabulation is specific to self-referent information.
  • To examine the influence of emotional valence and self-reference on memory recall in confabulating patients.

Main Methods:

  • A group study involving confabulating amnesic patients, non-confabulating amnesic patients, and healthy controls.
  • Participants recalled short stories with manipulated emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral) and encoding instructions (self-referent vs. other-referent).

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Confabulating patients showed memory recall impairments comparable to amnesic patients, both groups performing worse than healthy controls.
  • A selective positive bias was observed in confabulating patients in the negative self-referent condition, portraying themselves more favorably.
  • This bias was absent in non-self-referent material and uncorrelated with self-reported mood.

Conclusions:

  • Confabulation and its self-enhancing content may stem from deficits in memory retrieval control, allowing motivational factors to play a larger role.
  • The findings suggest confabulation represents a neurogenic exaggeration of normal self-serving memory distortions, particularly concerning self-relevant negative information.