- confabulation
- The making of bizarre and incorrect responses, and a readiness to give a fluent but tangential answer, with no regard whatever to facts, to any question put; seen in amnesia and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. [L. con-fabulor, pp. -fabulatus, to talk together, fr. fabula, narrative]
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con·fab·u·la·tion kən-.fab-yə-'lā-shən, .kän- n a filling in of gaps in memory by unconstrained fabrication (as in Korsakoff's psychosis)con·fab·u·late kən-'fab-yə-.lāt vi, -lat·ed; -lat·ingcon·fab·u·la·to·ry -yə-lə-.tōr-ē, -.tȯr- adj* * *
n.the invention of circumstantial but fictitious detail about events supposed to have occurred in the past. Usually this is to disguise an inability to remember past events. It may be a symptom of any form of loss of memory, but typically occurs in Korsakoff's syndrome.* * *
con·fab·u·la·tion (kon″fab-u-laґshən) [L. confabulari to converse together] unconscious filling in of gaps in memory with fabricated facts and experiences, most commonly associated with organic pathology. It differs from lying in that the patient has no intention to deceive and believes the fabricated memories to be real. Called also fabrication and fabulation.
Medical dictionary. 2011.