TY - JOUR AU - Bernecker, Sven PY - 2017 M3 - Hypothesis and Theory TI - A Causal Theory of Mnemonic Confabulation JO - Frontiers in Psychology UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01207 VL - 8 SN - 1664-1078 N2 - This paper attempts to answer the question of what defines mnemonic confabulation vis-à-vis genuine memory. The two extant accounts of mnemonic confabulation as “false memory” and as ill-grounded memory are shown to be problematic, for they cannot account for the possibility of veridical confabulation, ill-grounded memory, and well-grounded confabulation. This paper argues that the defining characteristic of mnemonic confabulation is that it lacks the appropriate causal history. In the confabulation case, there is no proper counterfactual dependence of the state of seeming to remember on the corresponding past representation. ER -