False memory

This article is about psychology. For the novel by Dean Koontz, see False Memory (novel).

In psychology, false memory refers to the recollection of an event, or the details of an event, that did not occur. Topics related to false memory include

• False memory syndrome, a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by strongly-believed but false memories of traumatic experiences
• Source-monitoring error, an effect in which memories are incorrectly attributed to different experiences than the ones that caused them
• Misinformation effect, false memories caused by exposure to misleading information presented between the encoding of an event and its subsequent recall
• Confabulation, the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories without the conscious intention to deceive