1. 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

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

3. 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)

4. 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

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

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

7. 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

8. 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

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

10. 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

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

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

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

18. 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

19. Questions?