1 / 19

Joanne Shih

Elisa Ciaramelli , Simona Ghetti. What are confabulators’ memories made of? A study of subjective and objective measures of recollection in confabulation. Joanne Shih. What is confabulation?. A memory of an event or experience that has not actually happened. What is confabulation?.

gamada
Download Presentation

Joanne Shih

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Elisa Ciaramelli, SimonaGhetti What are confabulators’ memories made of? A study of subjective and objective measures of recollection in confabulation 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. 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 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?

More Related