Brain Fiction (3)

Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation

It is interesting that also normal people confabulate (quite often) e.g.  giving ad-hoc explanations about  personal experiences that actually never happened, or give unwarranted answers to questions they think they are supposed to know (in order to cover up deficits in knowledge).

Children may respond with made-up stories when pressed for answers (provoked confabulation). For example, a film was shown to a group of children, then they were asked why this event (as shown in the movie) happened (although it wasn’t shown). The children responded with several explanations why this or that happened – since they were provoked to provide explanations. When they were asked again about the movie sometime later, some children already had incorporated this pseudo-event as a fact (false memory). So, they do not lie, but merely (unknowingly) confabulate.

People were presented several cloths (that actually were made of the same material/fabric) and asked to make a choice which one they preferred most. Most often, people selected one specific cloth. When told that all were the same, they might come up with answers like: Oh, it felt differently, or that this one was smoother than the others, and the like.

It seems that people tend to avoid saying ‘I don’t know’  - but would rather provide an ill-grounded explanation (confabulation of the milder kind …). They tend to stick with their explanations – but not with the tenacity of the deluded.

Clinical confabulators believe what they say is true since their belief is caused by a clinical disorder (delusion). This means that delusion is the necessary cause for clinical confabulation.

 

 

Some statements

A full-blown delusion is caused by clinical brain disorder, injuries and/or substance abuse.

Self-Delusion on the other hand is caused by saying one thing but still knowing that it may be ill-grounded, but not showing any effort to check it out and correct it. Self-deluded people are willingly complacent about making ill-grounded statements. They may even speak about them with great confidence and spread their delusion to other people who then easily take it for granted (delusion of the masses).

Intentional misleading or lying is the act of knowing the truth but making people believe the opposite (i.e. intend to deceive)

Certain learned/behavioral conditions are responsible for ‘social confabulations’.