confabulation

Confabulation is the production of false recollections, often seen in psychiatric disorders and memory abnormalities. It is a type of paramnesia, a term introduced by Emil Kraepelin to describe memory errors.12

Confabulation can manifest as detailed accounts of past events that are not accurate, particularly in individuals with Korsakoff syndrome, where retrograde amnesia and disorientation are present. While it was once thought to be an attempt to fill memory gaps, research suggests it's not directly related to the severity of amnesia. Factors like suggestibility and a lack of insight into one's memory disorder may play a role.1

Reduplicative paramnesia is a specific form where individuals may believe they are in multiple similar locations or have seen an object before when they haven't. This is often associated with confusion, speech disorders, and disorientation. While confabulation is pathological, all memory involves reconstruction, and confabulation may represent an extreme form of this process.21