Abstract

Examples of confabulation in Korsakoff patients, Alzheimer-type dementing patients, and healthy subjects are discussed. It is argued that there may be two types of confabulation: spontaneous confabulation, which may result from the superimposition of frontal dysfunction on an organic amnesia, and provoked confabulation, which may reflect a normal response to a faulty memory. In the present study, instances of provoked confabulation, given by Korsakoff and Alzheimer patients in story recall, were compared with those produced by healthy subjects at a prolonged retention interval.