Paramnesia or pseudoamnesia is presented as one of the types of disturbances in the memorization process and is characterized by the distortion of memories and the replacement of real events with fictitious ones.
There are other memory disorders that manifest themselves in disturbances in memorizing, storing, forgetting and reproducing information.
Depending on which memory function is impaired, in addition to paramnesia, the following types of memory disorders are distinguished:
- Dysmnesia or memory weakness is a pathology in which the patient loses the ability to effectively remember current factual information. It is most pronounced at moments when an answer must be given as quickly as possible.
- Amnesia is a complete or partial loss of memories due to a traumatic emotional or physiological factor. It can be either temporary – from several minutes to several weeks – or irreversible.
Paramnesia differs from all other pathologies in that with it the memory is not weakened or lost, but only distorted.
Qualitative disturbances are primarily associated with a distortion of self-awareness. The concept was introduced in 1886 by Emil Kraepelin. In another way, he called this disease “memory deception .
People with paramnesia experience confusion between past and current events, as well as real and imagined memories. This is mainly due to the fact that the patient attaches great importance to those events or roles that happened to him in the past. In psychology, the term refers to inaccurate or erroneous interpretations of the facts of one's autobiography.
History of research
Memory is a person’s ability to remember things that happened to him or to the environment. The brain itself constantly analyzes any information it receives, but at some point a failure may occur and the memorization process is disrupted.
The false memory effect has been studied for many years, but to this day it has not been possible to clearly explain why this happens. For the first time, a doctor from France, Florence Arnault, described his visual sensations associated with a flash of false memories and called them “déjà vu.” However, this effect occurs both from something heard and from a new smell, that is, it may seem to a person that he has previously heard some text or a certain aroma.
American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus also conducted research in this direction and came to the conclusion that the phenomenon of false memory can form trust in a certain person or organization. The most striking example is the influence of the media on the consciousness of the masses.
I remember everything that was not with me!
Pseudo-reminiscence is literally translated from ancient Greek as “false memory.” Or a “memory” of something that never actually happened to this person.
This pathology is exclusively a product of the human brain - a type of hallucination. But hallucinations that occurred not with perception, but with its memory due to organic pathology of the brain, or as a result of the development of paraphrenic or paranoid syndrome.
Combinations of pseudo-reminiscences with truly actual memory disorders (hypomnesia and amnesia) are not uncommon.
Memorization process
A person perceives the world around him with the help of smell, touch, hearing, sight, taste. All these feelings are interconnected. The memorization process can occur on the basis of emotional, verbal and logical analysis, figurative and motor facts.
False memory is formed according to the same principles, so it is divided into auditory, visual, and so on.
Rare attacks of pseudomemory that do not affect a person's life are not considered dangerous. However, if this happens on an ongoing basis, then it is further confirmation that unhealthy processes are occurring in the brain and/or psyche and, perhaps, the patient has already developed false memory syndrome. If this significantly affects an individual’s lifestyle, doctors call this condition paramnesia.
Treatment
Currently, there is no specific drug treatment that could restore memory processes, since there is no proven and tested pharmacological agent.
Indirect treatment methods are mainly used, among which the following are worth noting:
Treatment must be carried out under conditions of clinical observation; constant registration of all changes is necessary. Treatment depends on the specific features of the underlying pathology that the person suffers from. In addition to nootropics that speed up the functioning of nerve cells, vitamins and antioxidants are prescribed. It is also important to ensure and create a favorable environment around the patient. The patient should be limited from any factors that provoke stress.
Types of paramnesia
One of the manifestations of false memory is pseudoreminiscence. A person who has experienced a strong insult in the distant past constantly remembers it and after some time begins to perceive it as something that happened recently. This condition is typical for middle-aged people.
Contabulation or implausible stories is a state very similar to pseudo-reminiscence, but everything that happened in the past is diluted with fictitious stories. This condition is typical for alcoholics and drug addicts, for people who take psychotropic drugs or are diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Cryptomnesia or fantastic dreams is a condition characteristic of impressionable individuals. The plot of a book you read can become part of the life of a person who gains confidence that everything described happened to him.
Diagnostics
When diagnosing confabulation, it is not enough to simply notice an inconsistency or something unusual in the patient's words. Since the phenomenon is the beginning of mental illness or a consequence of trauma, the “patient” requires further treatment. Diagnostics is carried out in several stages:
- Collection of medical history.
- Clinical conversation.
- Study of memory functioning.
When collecting an anamnesis, a biography is formed, and it is better to compile it from the words of close relatives, since the patient himself embellishes or changes events.
A conversation is necessary for the specialist to determine the nature of the confabulations. This is important when choosing treatment.
A memory test consists of various tests and tasks that the patient solves. The most common of them:
- recall method - the patient is asked to tell a well-known historical fact;
- recognition method - scrolling through different repeating pictures in order to identify the ability to remember.
There are other diagnostic methods. Since confabulations are classified into several subtypes, an individual program is selected for each patient.
Causes
Where does false memory come from, and why can't you trust memories? In fact, the exact cause of pseudomemory has not yet been identified. Most often, this problem is encountered by people with damage to the front part of the brain, the frontal lobes.
Provoking factors include:
- traumatic brain injuries;
- Korsakoff's syndrome;
- acute cerebrovascular accidents;
- malignant neoplasms in the brain;
- senile dementia;
- epilepsy;
- Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Pick's and other ailments.
Severe intoxication with drugs, alcohol, and psychotropic substances quite often causes memory problems.
Examples from life
If we don’t talk about extremes, then the so-called gray zones of memory are present in every person, and some non-existent facts are perceived as real throughout life. For example, Marilyn Monroe claimed in many interviews that she was raped at the age of 7. However, each time she called a different name of the rapist.
Marlene Dietrich had similar memories. She was sure that at the age of 16 she was raped by a music teacher, and she clearly always said the same name. However, after a thorough check, journalists found out that such a teacher really existed, but at the time when Marlene was 16 years old, he did not even live in Germany.
There are many more cases involving false memory. Some stories even ended in litigation. One thing is clear: if a person constantly convinces himself that this or that event has happened, then over time it will become a reality for him. And political strategists and marketers use this quite successfully.
Classification
Confabulation as a symptom is observed in various psychopathologies . Accordingly, in each specific case there is a different etiology, different depth and severity of memory impairment, and different accompanying symptoms. As a result, the manifestations of such a disorder are also quite different.
For this reason, in psychology and psychiatry, confabulations are divided into two main groups, in which the patients’ fiction differs both in its content and in its original origin.
By content
Mnemonic . False memories affect everyday life or professional activities in the current time.
Ecmnestic confabulation most often accompanies progressive amnesia in middle-aged and elderly patients.
False memories are associated with the past: from youth to childhood. There is no idea of real age and present time.
Fantastic . Such memory deception is a typical symptom of paraphrenic syndrome - a combination of affect with delusions of grandeur, influence and persecution. False memories differ from all previous forms in their scale of unreality: from historical events of the distant past to the no less distant future. Often this type of confabulation runs parallel to paraphrenic delirium.
By origin
Suggested is the most common form. It is expressed by a laconic and expected answer to the question posed. No matter how absurd the tips are, the patient does not notice the catch.
Spontaneous - the patient tells impressive stories invented on the spot. He answers the question posed incorrectly, while embellishing his answer as much as possible in order to impress the listener.
Oneiric - caused by a violation of consciousness of the productive type. Fictional memories relate to the subject of psychosis experienced in schizophrenia, oneiric syndrome, hallucinations or epilepsy.
Occasionally occurs in organic, infectious or intoxication psychosis.
Expansive - fictitious facts are associated with delusions of grandeur and obsessions, when the patient considers himself a genius, extremely rich and even a titled person.
Replacement mnestic - confabulation is expressed by replacing memory gaps with events of both past years and the present.
Delusional - does not refer to clouding and memory impairment. Arises as a result of the patient's delusional ideas. Typical of the paranoid syndrome of schizophrenia.
Pseudo-memory on a global scale
What is the false collective memory effect called? The second name of the phenomenon is the “Mandela effect.” The story is really about Nelson Mandela. This happened in 2013, when information appeared that the President of South Africa had died. Search engines were overloaded with queries about this event. This is due to the fact that most of the world’s population was completely sure that this person died back in the 70s of the last century. Indeed, Mandela went to prison during these years, where he spent more than 25 years, but after his release he continued his activities to protect human rights and even became the president of the country.
Many researchers became interested in this fact, but they failed to find a rational explanation for this phenomenon.
Echonesia: we are a long echo of each other
It is no coincidence that the name of this disorder, in addition to the ancient Greek word mnesis - memory, also includes the word echo - reflection.
For the event of the past, like a lost and restless echo, is endlessly repeated in the head of the “sufferer” from a love “illness” or from another similar reason. There is even a case described when a date with the same person was “repeated” for the sufferer “in the same room” no less than 80 times!
At that time, the obsessive state was explained by intoxication psychosis (Dibenamine), very similar symptoms are observed with quinine intoxication.
Related to dual perception, the phenomenon of echonesia (or reduplicating Pick's paramnesia) can be a consequence of:
- Korsakov's syndrome;
- dementia;
- paralysis;
- psychosis;
- pathological process in the temporoparietal region.
Russian examples
The manifestation of mass false memory occurs quite often in history. In our country, it is customary to blame Catherine the Great for the fact that Alaska belongs to America. In fact, it has nothing to do with the sale of this part of the continent. Alaska was sold by Alexander II, who came to power almost 100 years later.
Another common myth is that the poem that begins with the words “I’m sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon...” was written by Lermontov. In fact, this creation belongs to Pushkin.
From recent history, the most striking example is associated with Yeltsin. Many are sure that before leaving he said the following phrase: “I’m tired, I’m leaving.” Although, in fact, he only said the second part of the sentence.
Almost everyone remembers the movie “Beware of the Car,” and the phrase that became a catchphrase: “Boy, get away from the car.” In fact, it was heard in a completely different film - “A Secret to the Whole World.”
People who studied in Soviet times remember that they were always taught in school that Hitler had brown eyes, which was considered a real joke, because a true Aryan cannot have eyes of that color. However, if we analyze the records of Hitler’s contemporaries, his eye color was still blue. It is unclear where such a persistent and untruthful opinion came from.
