Your Childhood is a Lie: Confabulation and Source Confusion
By Mitchell Ulman
Though the title may seem like an exaggeration, I assure you there is a truth to this statement, and I shall explain. How much do you remember of your very early childhood (ages 3-7)? Do you remember the days when you played in the sandbox? The days your parents read you your favorite story for the first time? What if I told you they are all false, that every memory from that time in your life is simply a fabrication to fill in the blank? To help explain these false memories, let us look at an example.
Jack always believed he had a good memory; in fact, he recalled the days when he would play on the swing set in his childhood, how he would go home with a gift from his best friend, and how he was always proud back in the day where he would win the first-grade spelling bee. Jack reminisced over these memories occasionally and would share them with others. Today was no different when Jack returned home for Thanksgiving and would tell his parents. This time, he would be met with confused expressions instead of receiving the usual reaction to his story. Jack would ask what the matter was, and his mother responded, “What spelling bee? You never won a spelling bee?”
Jack and your memories aren’t simple cases of poor memory; Jack and you are experiencing a case of confusion. According to Sarah Robins “Confabulation is a memory error that is concerned most directly with the requirement that the targeted event must exist. In most cases of confabulation, it does not… Confabulation now describes a range of memory disorders, deficits, and abnormal behaviors…Other confabulations involve false memories that occur in everyday life, not in clinical settings.” (Robins, 2018). Jack thought he won a spelling bee in the first grade when there was no spelling bee. This is an example of Spontaneous Confabulation, which occurs independently in one’s memories and isn’t tied to specific questioning.
Confabulation can often happen due to the underdevelopment of our childhood brains; at very young ages, the brain can’t make lasting memories. Confabulation occurs in everyone, so nobody can say they have a perfect recall of the past; it's just something our brains are incapable of.
As Jack questions his memory further, his mother asks him if he remembers anything from his childhood. Pondering, he remembers the time he went to the swingset with his mother after school one evening, to which his mom replies that that was false as well. This is an example of confabulation, much like the spelling bee; however, it is also an example of provoked confabulation. Provoked Confabulation is the construction of false memories to form a story in response to a question.
As we see, many of Jack's prized memories of his childhood are false, but we are left to question where these false memories come from. A significant cause of these distorted memories would be a phenomenon known as source confusion.
Source confusion is when the origin point of the memory is lost, and so it is misattributed to another memory or experience. As Mathew Sharp of Psychology Today puts it, “Source confusion is a huge problem in our modern world as well. If you read something on the internet about preventing mosquito bites by eating mosquitos (to scare the remaining insects away, of course), and you incorrectly recall having heard this gem from the Surgeon General, the resulting confusion might cause major problems for you as you travel in malarial areas. The psychology of source confusion has a great deal of relevance for our modern world.” (Sharp, 2023).
As for an answer, cure, or some other way to avoid memory mixups, your guess is as good as mine; however, there is research that suggests ways to help cope with confabulation. The human brain is still a great mystery to us as a species, and though we know Confabulation and source confusion happen, we do not understand how these mishaps are caused or if our brain even considers them mishaps. This article from WebMD presents some methods of avoiding confabulation and source confusion, such as allowing extra time for processing, avoiding leading questions, minimizing distractions, etc.
Though the concept of Confabulation and Source confusion may seem intimidating, like all of your childhood memories are lies and fabrications, what you can reliably remember is that even if you don’t know your childhood, someone else will. Jack has his family and friends who can recount his childish dreams and youthful activities; he can rely on them to remind him of his story, so I ask, who do you have to remember the times you can’t? Take time out of your day to ask your family what you were like in your childhood, what dreams you chased, what adventures you had, and what little accidents led to the best of laughs. After all, memories only last if we share them with others.
References
Bhandari, S. What to Know about Confabulation. WebMD, 17 July. 2023, www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-to-know-about-confabulation.
Cherry, K. Examples of Confabulation in Psychology. Verywell Mind, 21 Nov. 2019, www.verywellmind.com/confabulation-definition-examples-and-treatments-4177450. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
Robins, S. (2020). Mnemonic Confabulation. Topoi, 39(1), 121–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9613-x
Sharps M. (2023). Evidence Matters: Marcos’ Menagerie and Source Confusion. Psychology Today. www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-forensic-view/202308/evidence-matters-marcos-menagerie-and-source-confusion?msockid=3c56cfc0889462ef3e2edb8b897163a1. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.