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memory
You can misidentify the source of your own thoughts.
Cryptomnesia occurs when you mistake a forgotten memory for a brand-new, original idea.
This happens when the retrieval process fails to tag the memory with its correct context. You successfully recall the information but lose the 'metadata' about where or when you learned it. Your brain then attributes the thought to your own imagination.
Your most creative ideas are often just memories you failed to label.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Brown and Murphy, 1989, Journal of Experimental Psychology
- What the check found
- The definition is correct and the cited paper (Brown & Murphy, 1989) is the seminal work on this phenomenon, though the journal title is technically JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.