What are confabulators’ memories made of What are confabulators’ memories made of? A study of subjective and objective measures of recollection in confabulation Elisa Ciaramelli, Simona Ghetti Joanne Shih

What is confabulation? A memory of an event or experience that has not actually happened

What is confabulation? A memory of an event or experience that has not actually happened Known causes: Brain damage Psychological or psychiatric disorders (e.g. Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease)

What is confabulation? A memory of an event or experience that has not actually happened Known causes: Brain damage Psychological or psychiatric disorders (e.g. Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease) Confabulators: re-live their confabulatory reports as if they are true memories

Research Objective To what extent are confabulators’ subjective experiences of memories based on what they recall objectively?

Background Healthy Individuals Subjective experience of memories are the same as the details they recall

Background Healthy Individuals Confabulators Subjective experience of memories are the same as the details they recall Have the ability to remember, but their subjective memories are based on faulty recollection

Hypotheses The subjective experience of remembering and the objective ability to recollect qualitative features are distinct in confabulating patients unlike in normal subjects This is due to their excessive processing of context- irrelevant information upon recollection

Participants 12 patients with brain damage 5 confabulators (4 males, 1 female) 7 non-confabulators (4 males, 3 females) 12 healthy individuals

Exp. 1: Summary Confabulating patients: impaired recollection of information but exhibited subjective experience of memories Non-confabulating patients: impaired recollection of information and impaired subjective experience of memories

Exp. 2: Method 40 words in two sets (4-8 letters long) Set 1: Study Set 2: Distracters R/K Recognition Task: R-“remember” K- “know” ‘R’ responses= subjective measure of recollection Raters: Categorized patients’ responses Intra-list Extra-list Self-referent

One word presented every 3s Exp. 2: Method Study Recognition octopus octopus Old? Remember? Know? New? One word presented every 3s

Exp. 2: Results Confabulators’ R responses (their subjective recollection) were not triggered by specific details from the context …They were mainly triggered by self-referent (autobiographical) information Aka, context-irrelevant info

Discussion Excessive processing of context-irrelevant info seems to be responsible for: The dissociation between subjective and objective measures of recollection in confabulators Their vivid recollection of false memories Why the failure to inhibit irrelevant info? Confabulators have problems adapting to reality

Discussion Cont’d. Having large amounts of retrievable info for recollection  influences feeling of knowing Confabulating patients’ memory decisions are cluttered by large amount of info Influences their sense of knowing Promotes confidence in their false memories

Future Directions Study factors involved in failure to inhibit irrelevant information Investigate therapeutic applications Link findings with anatomical structures involved

Take-Home Message Limiting patients’ access to irrelevant info will improve memory performance

Opinion of Paper Good background experimental designs Strengths Weaknesses Good background experimental designs Addressed alternative explanations for findings Lack of figures: an example of the word task used would clarify procedure Uneven distribution of confabulating patients and gender

Questions?