The phenomenon of human memory is one of the most studied cognitive functions throughout the history of science, since in addition to being extremely complex it is also highly treacherous.

One of the phenomena that deform the reality of people is the confabulations , understood as false products of memory.

What are conspiracies?

Collusion is a curious phenomenon that is difficult to explain. In the first place, could be defined with a kind of false memory due to a problem of memory recovery .

But there are differences between false memories and conspiracies, and the latter go beyond the category of the normal; either because of the high frequency with which they appear or because of their strangeness.

On the other hand, the person who suffers them is not aware of it, coming to take these memories as genuine and not doubting their veracity.The content of the confabulations varies greatly from one person to another, and can range from stories related to the patient’s or other people’s experiences, to genuine constructions completely invented by the patient.

In addition, the degree of credibility may also differ from person to person. We manage to contain from the most common stories (telling that one has gone to buy bread), and therefore credible; to the most absurd and disproportionate stories (telling that one has been abducted by aliens).

Classification of conspiracies: Kopelman vs. Schnider

Throughout history, conspiracies have been classified according to four criteria:

  • Content : differentiated in limits of true or false, probability of occurrence, positive or negative, etc.
  • Mode in which they appear : provoked or spontaneous.
  • T Errors in which is expressed : autobiographical, episodic, general semantic or personal semantic
  • Clinical syndrome in which it appears.

However, the most accepted classification by the scientific society is the one made by Kopelman. He considered that the most relevant thing to take into account was the way in which they arose; distinguishing themselves in two types. They are the following.

1. Spontaneous Collaborations

They are the least frequent and are usually related to another integrated amnesia syndrome along with another dysfunction.

2. Collusion

These phenomena are much more frequent in amnesic patients and are observed during the administration of some memory test. They are similar to the errors that a healthy person may make when trying to memorize something with a long retention interval, and may represent a common response to altered memory.

Another classification was proposed by Schnider, who ordered them into four genres according to the different production mechanisms. Although these groupings do not enjoy unanimous validity in the scientific community, they can help the reader understand what they are about.

3. Simple provoked intrusions

This term includes the distortions that appear when a person is pressured to remember the details of a story. An example would be when a person tries to remember a list of words and unconsciously introduces new words that are not on the list.

According to Schnider, this type of intrusion does not correspond to a specific recovery mechanism.

4. Momentary conspiracies

They refer to false statements that a patient makes when prompted to make a comment in a conversation. Compared to other conspiracies of more fantastic content, these can be completely plausible and credible on the part of the listener, although they may be incompatible with the person’s current state and circumstances.

For example, the patient may report that he is going on a trip abroad when he is actually in hospital.

Momentary conspiracies are the most common of all, but they are not yet fully understood so it is not clear whether they have a mechanism of their own.

5. Fantastic conspiracies

As the name suggests, these confabulations have no basis in reality; and they are frequent in patients with paralytic dementia and psychosis.

These conspiracies are absolutely inconceivable from a logical point of view and they make no sense at all. Moreover, if they are not accompanied by the proper conduct.

Causes

Usually the story of confabulations is typical of patients with damage in prefrontal areas of the brain , specifically the anterior basal brain; including here the orbitofrontal and ventromedial areas.

The disorders and diseases with the greatest amount of confabulation are the following:

  • Wernike-Korsakoff Syndrome
  • Brain Tumors
  • Herpes simplex encephalitis
  • Front-Time Dementia
  • Multiple Sclerosis
  • Anterior Communicating Artery Infarction

On the other hand, from the neuropsychological point of view, three hypotheses can be distinguished, which differ in the degree to which the deterioration of memory affects confabulations. These are the hypothesis centred on memory dysfunction, centred on executive dysfunction, or the dual hypothesis.

1. Memory dysfunction

This first assumption is based on the idea that amnesia is a necessary condition for the patient to be able to confabulate . At the time, conspiracies were considered a different form of amnesia. This belief is still held today as they appear predominantly in neurological disorders that lead to memory impairment.

From this hypothesis it is insisted that the confabulations are a way to “fill in” the gaps left by amnesia.

2. Executive dysfunction

The executive function includes internally and goal-oriented self-directed cognitive skills . These functions direct our behaviour and our cognitive and emotional activity.

Therefore, this hypothesis establishes that collusion is the result of problems in this executive function. The evidence supporting this theory is that such conspiracies decrease when executive functioning improves.

3. Dual hypothesis

The third and last hypothesis maintains that the production of conspiracies is due to a joint involvement of deficit procedures both at the level of memory and executive operation.

Explanatory models of conspiracies

The difficulty of defining conspiracies in a concrete way, explaining them as false memories but completely true for the patient, makes it necessary for researchers to develop explanatory models.

When research on conspiracies began, the models insisted that they arose from the patient’s need to compensate for memory gaps. However, despite the fact that emotional aspects are taken into account, this model has been overcome today.

On the other hand, from neuropsychology there are several suggestions to explain this phenomenon . These are grouped among those that define confabulations as a problem of temporality, and those that give greater relevance to the recovery process.

1. Theories of temporality

This theory supports that a patient who colludes suffers from a distorted sense of chronology. In this sense patients are able to remember what happened but not the proper chronological order.

The theory of temporality is supported by the observation that most conspiracies can be traced back to a true but misplaced memory.

2. Recovery theories

Human memory is considered a reconstructive process, and conspiracies are a great example of this.

According to these theories, confabulations are the product of a deficit in the memory recovery process. The strongest evidence is that it affects both distant memories and those acquired after the deficit is installed.

Even so, the recovery of memories is not a unique process , so it would be necessary to determine which specific aspects are those that are deteriorated.