confabulation
Invented memory, believed
Confabulation is the production of false memories without intent to deceive—the mind fills gaps with fabricated details that feel genuine.
In psychology and neurology, it describes how brain-damaged patients invent coherent but untrue accounts of events: His confabulations about the accident were elaborate but bore no relation to what happened.
More casually, confabulation means chatting or conversing informally, though this sense is rare outside literary contexts.
Believed but fictional recall
- reconstructionRebuilding after destruction
- distortionTwisting from original state
- misrememberingInaccurate mental retrieval
- suggestibilityReadiness to accept influence
implantation · confusional · source confusion · memory gap · misattribution · memory error
Alcoholic amnesia disorder
- amnesiaPathological loss of recall
- dementiaChronic cognitive impairment
- brain injuryDamage to cranial organ
- memory impairmentDiminished ability to recall
cognitive deficit · thiamine deficiency · aneurysm · traumatic brain injury · alcoholism · disorientation · split-brain · executive dysfunction
Deliberate untrue statement
- lieDeliberate falsehood
- inventionNew device or method
- untruthA false statement
- fantasyImaginative mental wandering
fiction · embellishment · exaggeration · tall tale · fib · prevarication · make-believe · whopper
Spoken exchange between parties
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
- exchangeMutual giving and receiving
- talkVerbal exchange between people
- colloquyFormal conversation or conference
communication · discussion · debate · interchange · deliberation · consultation · parley · chat
false memory
Believed but fictional recall
- reconstructionRebuilding after destruction
- distortionTwisting from original state
- misrememberingInaccurate mental retrieval
suggestibility · implantation · confusional · source confusion · memory gap · misattribution · memory error
Korsakoff syndrome
Alcoholic amnesia disorder
- amnesiaPathological loss of recall
- dementiaChronic cognitive impairment
- brain injuryDamage to cranial organ
memory impairment · cognitive deficit · thiamine deficiency · aneurysm · traumatic brain injury · alcoholism · disorientation · split-brain · executive dysfunction
falsehood
Deliberate untrue statement
fantasy · fiction · embellishment · exaggeration · tall tale · fib · prevarication · make-believe · whopper · canard
dialogue
Spoken exchange between parties
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
- exchangeMutual giving and receiving
- talkVerbal exchange between people
colloquy · communication · discussion · debate · interchange · deliberation · consultation · parley · chat · palaver
- discussionsdiscussion, discussions, forum, talks, roundtable
- falsehoodslie, lies, lying, fib, fibbing
- coping mechanismsrepression, denial, projection, sublimation, rationalization
- self-deceptiondenial, delusion, wishful thinking, rationalization, willful blindness
- psychosishallucinations, psychosis, delusions, delusion, schizophrenia
- memory errorsmemory leak, false memory, memory distortion, misattribution, source confusion
confabulationtruth
Accordance with reality
accuracy · verified account · historical accuracy · documentary evidence · reality