Strategic retrieval, confabulations, and delusions: theory and data

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Confabulation is traditionally viewed as a strategic retrieval deficit.
• Moscovitch and Winocur's "working with memory" framework provides a basis for understanding memory processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose that confabulation results from a confluence of deficits across multiple memory-related processes.
• To categorize these deficits into core, constitutional, and associated features.
• To compare and contrast confabulation with delusions within a strategic memory framework.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical analysis based on the "working with memory" framework.
• Categorization of memory deficits contributing to confabulation.
• Comparative analysis of confabulation and delusions, focusing on mnemonic aspects.

Main Results:

• Confabulation involves deficits in "feeling of rightness" monitoring, "editor" monitoring, and retrieval control processes (core).
• Constitutional deficits include erroneous memory formation, context confusion, and retrieval cue generation issues.
• Associated features like schematic reliance and positivity biases influence confabulation content but are not essential for its occurrence.

Conclusions:

• Confabulation is a complex disorder stemming from multiple interacting memory deficits.
• Delusions, while sharing some associated features, are primarily disorders of information input and integration, unlike confabulation's retrieval focus.
• A strategic memory framework aids in distinguishing confabulation from delusions.