The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality

Confabulations are memories of events and experiences that have never actually happened. Such false memories have fascinated scientists for over a century, and in recent years been the subject of much debate. This is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of an extraordinary and controversial subject. Written by a leading authority, it re-traces the history of this phenomenon and explores its causes, anatomical basis, and mechanisms. It looks at how confabulations relate to other failures of memory and considers phenomena such as deja-vu, paramnesic misidentification, disorientation, and anosognosia. The book also examines similarities and differences between pathological confabulations and normal false memories, as they occur in healthy people. Providing important insights into memory in general, the book will be of interest to neurologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and other scientists and clinicians interested in the organization of memory and thought.