Alejandro was lost in the woods and thought he heard a bear. He climbed a tree to see if he could find a way home. A week later, he tells his friend with absolute sincerity that he climbed the tree to escape the bear. Alejandro is experiencing:
A) confabulation
B) false recognition
C) absentmindedness
D) memory bias

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Alejandro is experiencing confabulation, which means the creation of false memories to fill in gaps where actual memories are unavailable. In this case, he may have mistaken the sound of the wind or another animal for a bear and later created the false memory of climbing the tree to escape it. False recognition (B) refers to mistaking a familiar stimulus for something else, absentmindedness (C) is a lapse in attention or forgetting to do something, and memory bias (D) is a distortion in memory caused by pre-existing beliefs or attitudes.

Alejandro Was Lost in the Woods and Thought He Heard