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Disordered recognition memory: recollective confabulation.

Chris J A Moulin¹

¹Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement, CNRS UMR 5022, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. christopher.moulin@u-bourgogne.fr

Cortex; a Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior

|March 20, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Recollective confabulation (RC) involves believing the present is a past repeat, often mistaken for déjà vu. This study reveals RC patients have intact recollection but faulty familiarity, leading to overconfidence and memory errors.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Neurology

Background:

Recollective confabulation (RC) is a condition where individuals believe the current moment is a repetition of a past experience, often accompanied by fabricated details.
It is frequently described by caregivers as persistent déjà vu and is associated with high false positive error rates in formal testing.

Observation:

A case series of 11 individuals with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) experiencing déjà vu-like sensations was studied.
Two experiments investigated the recognition memory deficits in these patients.

Findings:

Contrary to prior hypotheses, recollection mechanisms appear relatively preserved in patients with RC.
Patients exhibit familiarity for non-presented items and tend to be overconfident in their recognition memory assessments, leading to inaccurate self-evaluations.
The study suggests a combined memory and metacognitive deficit, potentially linked to damage in temporal and right frontal brain regions.

Implications:

RC may stem from a metacognitive error, where individuals attempt to rationalize inappropriate feelings of familiarity.
This rationalization process can result in false recognition and contribute to delusional beliefs.
Understanding this deficit offers insights into broader delusions and memory disorders.