Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation / Edition 1

by William Hirstein

Overview

Some neurological patients exhibit a striking tendency to confabulate—to construct false answers to a question while genuinely believing that they are telling the truth. A stroke victim, for example, will describe in detail a conference he attended over the weekend when in fact he has not left the hospital. Normal people, too, sometimes have a tendency to confabulate; rather than admitting "I don't know," some people will make up an answer or an explanation and express it with complete conviction. In Brain Fiction, William Hirstein examines confabulation and argues that its causes are not merely technical issues in neurology or cognitive science but deeply revealing about the structure of the human intellect.

Hirstein describes confabulation as the failure of a normal checking or censoring process in the brain—the failure to recognize that a false answer is fantasy, not reality. Thus, he argues, the creative ability to construct a plausible-sounding response and some ability to check that response are separate in the human brain. Hirstein sees the dialectic between the creative and checking processes—"the inner dialogue"—as an important part of our mental life. In constructing a theory of confabulation, Hirstein integrates perspectives from different fields, including philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology to achieve a natural mix of conceptual issues usually treated by philosophers with purely empirical issues; information about the distribution of certain blood vessels in the prefrontal lobes of the brain, for example, or the behavior of split-brain patients can shed light on the classic questions of philosophy of mind, including questions about the function of consciousness. This first book-length study of confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262582711
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/11/2006
Series:	Philosophical Psychopathology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Hirstein is Professor of Philosophy at Elmhurst College, Illinois and the author of Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation (MIT Press).

Table of Contents

	Series Foreword	vii
	Acknowledgments	ix
1	What Is Confabulation?	1
1.1	Introduction	1
1.2	Confabulation Syndromes	7
1.3	Features of Confabulation	15
1.4	Three Concepts of Confabulation	19
1.5	Mirror-Image Syndromes	21
1.6	Conclusion: Setting the Problem of Confabulation	22
2	Philosophy and Neuroscience	25
2.1	The Growth of Neuroscience	25
2.2	Principles of Brain Structure and Function	31
2.3	The Limbic and Autonomic Systems	36
2.4	Philosophy's Role	37
2.5	Approach of This Book	40
3	Confabulation and Memory	43
3.1	Fictional Autobiographies	43
3.2	The Brain's Memory Systems	46
3.3	Korsakoff's Syndrome	49
3.4	Aneurysms of the Anterior Communicating Artery	55
3.5	Frontal Theories of Confabulation	60
3.6	Separating Amnesia and Confabulation	65
3.7	False Memories	66
3.8	Conclusion	67
4	Liars, Sociopaths, and Confabulators	71
4.1	Unhappy Family: The Orbitofrontal Syndromes	71
4.2	Symptoms of Orbitofrontal Damage	74
4.3	Anatomy and Physiology of the Orbitofrontal Cortex	82
4.4	Sociopathy	90
4.5	Lying and the Skin-Conductance Response	93
4.6	Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Mirror-Image Syndrome	97
4.7	Conclusion	99
5	Mind Reading and Misidentification	101
5.1	Knowledge of Others' Minds	101
5.2	Mind-Reading Systems	104
5.3	Misidentification Syndromes	114
5.4	A Mind-Reading Theory of Misidentification	122
5.5	Conclusion	133
6	Unawareness and Denial of Illness	135
6.1	Denial	135
6.2	Theories of Anosognosia	140
6.3	The Neuroscience of Denial	143
6.4	Denial of Blindness	145
6.5	Anosognosia and the Other Confabulation Syndromes	147
6.6	Conclusion	151
7	The Two Brains	153
7.1	Confabulations by Split-Brain Patients	153
7.2	Hemispheric Differences	155
7.3	Anatomy of the Cerebral Commissures	158
7.4	Lateral Theories of Confabulation	160
7.5	Evaluating the Lateral Theories	166
7.6	Other Confabulations about Mental States and Intentions	170
7.7	Conclusion	176
8	Confabulation and Knowledge	177
8.1	Confabulation as an Epistemic Phenomenon	177
8.2	The Neuroscience of Confabulation	179
8.3	Creation and Checking of Mental Representations	181
8.4	Defining Confabulation	187
8.5	Other Candidate Criteria and Conceptions	198
8.6	Epistemic Features of Confabulation	203
8.7	Knowing That We Do Not Know	209
8.8	Conclusion	211
9	Self-Deception	213
9.1	Confabulation: Clues to Self-Deception	213
9.2	Deception and Lying	218
9.3	What Is Self-Deception?	221
9.4	The Maintenance of Self-Deceptive Beliefs	226
9.5	Questions about Self-Deception	228
9.6	Self-Deception and Mind Reading	233
9.7	The Neuroscience of Self-Deception	234
9.8	Conclusion	236
10	Epilogue: Our Nature	239
10.1	The Meaning of Confabulation	239
10.2	Further Questions	241
	References	245
	Name Index	277
	Subject Index	283

What People are Saying About This

Fredric Schiffer

Both a neuroscientist and a philosopher, William Hirstein writes from his unique vantage point with great scholarship, precision, and clarity to tackle some of the deeper mysteries of the human mind. Brain Fiction is full of profound insights, and I recommend it to all who wish to better understand our human nature.

Endorsement

The most comprehensive treatment of the subject of confabulation ever written, Hirstein's Brain Fiction represents a pathbreaking and bold synthesis of philosophy and neuroscience. I expect it will prove to be a major resource for scholars and students of this fascinating and important subject for years to come.

—Todd E. Feinberg, M. D., Professor of Clincal Psychiatry and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, author of Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self

From the Publisher

Both a neuroscientist and a philosopher, William Hirstein writes from his unique vantage point with great scholarship, precision, and clarity to tackle some of the deeper mysteries of the human mind. Brain Fiction is full of profound insights, and I recommend it to all who wish to better understand our human nature.

—Fredric Schiffer, M.D., Harvard Medical School, author of Of Two Minds

Todd E. Feinberg

The most comprehensive treatment of the subject of confabulation ever written, Hirstein's Brain Fiction represents a pathbreaking and bold synthesis of philosophy and neuroscience. I expect it will prove to be a major resource for scholars and students of this fascinating and important subject for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

Hirstein has packed a wealth of scientific information into this book.—John Bickle, Journal of Consciousness Studies—

Brain Fiction offers one of the most extensive accounts of false memories and perceptions.

—Armin Schnider, Science—

From the Publisher

Brain Fiction offers one of the most extensive accounts of false memories and perceptions.

—Armin Schnider, Science

Reviews

Brain Fiction offers one of the most extensive accounts of false memories and perceptions.

Science - Armin Schnider

Hirstein has packed a wealth of scientific information into this book.

Journal of Consciousness Studies - John Bickle