Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T08:51:12.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Confabulation in schizophrenia: evidence of a new form?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

D. A. Nathaniel-James  and
C. D. Frith
D. A. Nathaniel-James
Affiliation:
Institute of Neurology and University College London, University of London
C. D. Frith*
Affiliation:
Institute of Neurology and University College London, University of London
*
1Address for correspondence: Professor C. D. Frith, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

This study is an attempt to demonstrate confabulation in schizophrenia. Twelve patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia were matched for age, sex and pre-morbid IQ with 12 volunteers, 9 of whom were normal healthy subjects, with the remainder being depressed patients. To elicit confabulation, subjects were asked to recall narratives. In addition, subjects were examined on a number of neuropsychological tests. Confabulation was denned as recall of information not present in the narrative. Variable amounts of confabulation were observed in all schizophrenics, while only one control subject confabulated. The content and structure of their productions differed from previously reported forms of confabulation in that schizophrenic patients spontaneously rearranged the original narratives to produce new ideas. The amount of confabulation was found to be related to difficulties in suppressing inappropriate responses (Hayling test) and formal thought disorder, but unrelated to understanding of the gist or moral of the narratives. Tentative mechanisms for the process of confabulation are proposed, based on specific difficulties with comprehension, response monitoring and response suppression.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , March 1996 , pp. 391 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baddeley, A. D. & Wilson, B. (1988). Frontal amnesia and the dysexecutive syndrome. Brain and Cognition 7, 212–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bauman, E. & Murray, D. J. (1968). Recognition vs. recall in schizophrenia. Canadian Journal of Psychology 22, 18–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, W. W., Jocic, A., Monson, N. & Staton, R. D. (1993). Memory and frontal lobe dysfunction in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Journal of Mental Disease, 181, 448–453.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benton, A. L., Hamsher, K., Varney, N. R. & Spreen, O. (1983). Contributions to Neuropsychological Assessment. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Berlyne, N. (1972). Confabulation. British Journal of Psychiatry 120, 31–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burgess, P. W. & Shallice, T. (1994). Fractionation of the frontal lobe syndrome. Revue de Neuropsychologie 4, 345–370.Google Scholar
Burgess, P. W. & Shallice, T. (1996). Response suppression, initiation and strategy use following frontal lobe lesions. Neuropsychologia (In the press.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calev, A. (1984). Recall and recognition in chronic non-demented schizophrenics. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 93, 172–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coughlan, A. K. & Hollows, S. E. (1985). The Adult Memory and Information Processing Battery. St James's University Hospital: Leeds.Google Scholar
Delis, D. C., Kramer, J. H., Kaplan, E. & Ober, B. A. (1987). California Verbal Learning Test (adult version). The Psychological Corporation/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc: New York.Google Scholar
Goldberg, T. E., Weinberger, D. R., Pliskin, N. H., Berman, K. F. & Podd, M. H. (1989). Recall memory deficit in schizophrenia: a possible manifestation of prefrontal dysfunction. Schizophrenia Research 2, 251–257.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joseph, R. (1986). Confabulation and delusion denial: frontal lobe and lateralized influences. Journal of Clinical Psychology 42, 507–520.3.0.CO;2-R>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kapur, N. & Coughlan, A. K. (1980). Confabulation after frontal lobe dysfunction. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 43, 461–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kolb, B. & Wishaw, I. Q. (1993). Performance of schizophrenic patients on tests sensitive to left or right frontal, temporal, or parietal function in neurological patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 171, 435–443CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopelman, M. D. (1987). Two types of confabulation. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 50, 1482–1487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krawiecka, M.Goldberg, D. & Vaughn, M. (1977). A standardised psychiatric assessment scale for rating psychotic patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 55, 299–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liddle, P. F. & Morris, D. L. (1991). Schizophrenic syndromes and frontal lobe performance. British Journal of Psychiatry 158, 340–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKenna, P., Tamlyn, D., Lund, A.M., Mortimer, A.M., Hammond, S. & Baddeley, A. D. (1990). Amnesic syndrome in schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 20, 967–972.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moscovitch, M. (1989). Confabulation and the frontal system: strategic versus associative retrieval in neuropsychological theories of memory. In Varieties of Memory and Consciousness: Essay in Honour of Endel Tulving (ed. Roediger, H. L. and Craik, F. I.), pp. 133–160. Lawrence Erlbaum: Hillsdale. NJ.Google Scholar
Nachmani, G. & Cohen, B. D. (1969). Recall and recognition free learning in schizophrenics. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 74, 511–516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neale, J. M. & Oltmanns, T. F. (1980). Schizophrenia. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Nelson, H. E. (1976). A modified card sorting test sensitive to frontal lobe defects. Cortex 12, 313–324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. E. (1982). National Adult Reading Test, 2nd edn.NFERN-Nelson: Windsor.Google Scholar
Norušis, M. J. (1992). SPSS for Windows Base System User's Guide. SPSS: Chicago.Google Scholar
Perret, E. (1974). The left frontal lobe in man and the suppression of habitual responses in verbal categorical behaviour. Neuropsychologia 23, 323–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, J. C. (1958). Advanced Progressive Matrices (set I): Manual. H. K. Lewis: London.Google Scholar
Saykin, A. J., Shtasel, D. L., Gur, R. E., Kester, D. B., Mozley, L. H., Stafiniak, P. & Gur, R. C. (1994). Neuropsychological deficits in neuroleptic naive patients with first-episode schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 51, 124–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shallice, T., Burgess, P. W. & Frith, C. D. (1991). Can the neuropsychological case-study approach be applied to schizophrenia? Psychological Medicine 21, 661–673.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shapiro, B. E., Alexander, M. P., Gardner, H. & Mercer, B. (1981). Mechanisms of confabulation. Neurology 31, 1070–1076.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warrington, E. K. (1984). Recognition Memory Test. NFER-Nelson: Windsor.Google Scholar