Abstract
This article develops a taxonomy of memory errors in terms of three conditions: the accuracy of the memory representation, the reliability of the memory process, and the internality (with respect to the remembering subject) of that process. Unlike previous taxonomies, which appeal to retention of information rather than reliability or internality, this taxonomy can accommodate not only misremembering (e.g., the DRM effect), falsidical confabulation, and veridical relearning but also veridical confabulation and falsidical relearning. Moreover, because it does not assume that successful remembering presupposes retention of information, the taxonomy is compatible with recent simulation theories of remembering.
Highlights
Unlike previous taxonomies, which appeal to retention of information rather than reliability or internality, this taxonomy can accommodate misremembering, falsidical confabulation, and veridical relearning and veridical confabulation and falsidical relearning
Confabulating, Misremembering, Relearning of the memory process. This taxonomy provides a plausible account of the relationships among remembering and misremembering, veridical and falsidical confabulation, and veridical and falsidical relearning, while remaining consistent with the simulation theory
One might suppose that, since a great deal is known about the mechanisms underlying confabulation and other types of memory error, we would be better off dispensing with highly general conditions such as accuracy, reliability, and internality and instead defining memory errors directly in terms of their underlying neural bases
Summary
On the one hand, to be exemplified by “lost in the mall”-style experiments, in which subjects are induced to remember events that they never experienced (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995) This sort of memory error, she says, reflects “no influence of retained information from a particular past event” Since confabulated memory representations may be built up from components originating in experience of different past events, what is intended here is clearly that confabulation reflects no influence of retained information from the particular past event described by the confabulated representation She takes misremembering, on the other hand, to be exemplified by the Deese-RoedigerMcDermott (DRM) effect, in which subjects who have studied a list of thematically-related words remember non-presented but thematically-consistent words (Deese, 1959; Roediger and McDermott, 1995). Simulationism fails to acknowledge the difference between misremembering, which involves retention of information originating in experience of the remembered event, and outright confabulation, which does not
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