Confabulation

A recent find in the Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections at Trinity College Dublin revealed that George Shanks, the man who published the first English translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in January 1920 was working as a clerk in the Chief Whips Office at 12 Downing Street under Coalition Whip, Freddie Guest. A closer look at Shanks' background also reveals he was the nephew of Aylmer Maude, the famous friend and translator of Tolstoy who became a leading voice in the pro-Interventionist movement of the Russian Affairs Committee during the Russian Civil War of 1917 to 1922. Maude’s colleagues at this time included former members of Britain’s wartime propaganda bureau in Petrograd, Harold Williams, Bernard Pares and Hugh Walpole, who were working closely with Winston Churchill on a no-holds barred campaign to destroy Lenin's Bolsheviks. I also explore the impact of Churchill's no less incendiary article for the Illustrated Sunday Herald, Zionism versus Bolshevism, which cynically combined the needs of making progress on the issue of British Mandate Palestine with attempts to undermine the trade negotiations between David Lloyd George's governmentand Soviet Russia.

A brand new find also reveals that Shanks co-translator, Major Edward G.G. Burdon was serving as Secretary to the United Russia Socities Association under House of Commons Speaker, James Lowther and alongside members Sir Bernard Pares, John Buchan and Hugh Walpole in support of White Russia's war against the Bolsheviks..

Historians do a fantastic job of recovering the past but like everybody else they're not infallible. There are many reasons for omissions, with few (if any) arising from outright conspiracy or deliberate attempts to deceive.

Please note that this book DOES NOT support the paranoid notion that The Protocols is real. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a crude and malicious fake, as this unfinished draft of book sets out to prove.

The PDF download available here takes the form of a guide to a book that has yet to be completed. It is a rough, unfinished draft.

For many historians, sociologists, and anthropologists of medicine, “disease” and “illness” are not equivalent. Whereas “disease” denotes the physician’s ostensibly objective criteria, “illness” emphasizes the patient’s subjective experience. This dissertation examines that distinction precisely at a point where it breaks down, in the history of a diagnosis called “anosognosia,” also known as the denial of illness.
    In the 1890s, Austrian psychiatrist Gabriel Anton observed a number of patients who denied being blind, deaf, or paralyzed. “That is just how it is,” a patient demurred, “one sees better in youth.” The question to Anton was, were such patients truly unaware of their loss or did they sense it on some level, if only to deny it?
    The history of Anton’s syndrome, later named “anosognosia” by the French neurologist Joseph Babinski, spans more than a century and a half across two continents and through both world wars. I treat its history as a special type of lens to focus on some of the broader intellectual and professional differences between neurology and psychiatry. I argue that the clinical perception and portrayal of this apparent loss of the patient’s experience depended on historical patterns of thinking about the distinction between conscious and unconscious perception as well as categories of health and disease. To think about the denial of illness was to think about the very meaning of illness and awareness, and the difference, if any, between the mind and the brain.

A retired technical engineer claimed he could prove that he had been a drowned passenger of the Titanic. The person he would have been was the infant Alfred Peacock. However, his proof was shown to be invalid and attributable to inaccurate research. The subject also had some clear and verifiable memories of his claimed previous life. These too turned out to be incorrect.
The reincarnation fantasies are partly explained by his experience with sea-journeys and by fascination with the Titanic catastrophe, which took place only a few years before his birth. However, his choice of an infant and the dissociative certainty with which his fantasies imposed themselves as memories remain unexplained..

The paper aims to defend the standard view of what it dubs ‘Self-understanding' — i.e., (very roughly) our knowledge of why we behave as we do — from the threat posed to it by Neo-Ryleanism. While the standard, entrenched view regards self-understanding as special in kind and status, the Neo-Rylean agrees with Gilbert Ryle that our method of understanding ourselves is much the same as our method of understanding others, involving self-interpretation on the basis of the available evidence. Neo-Ryleanism has been gaining ground in recent decades, fueled by a wide range of empirical results which allegedly demonstrate that subjects confabulate items of self-understanding. The paper rejects this attack on the received view. After critically examining one extant response to the Neo-Rylean, which gratuitously accuses her of equivocation, the paper proceeds to offer its own response, casting doubt over the suggestion that the experimental results actually demonstrate widespread confabulation.

In this paper, I will focus on a type of confabulation that emerges in relation to questions about mental attitudes (e.g. belief, emotion, decision) whose causes we cannot introspectively access. I argue against two popular views that see confabula- tions as mainly offering a psychological story about ourselves. On these views, confabulations are the result of either a cause-tracking mechanism or a self-directed mindreading mechanism. In contrast, I propose the view that confabulations are mostly telling a normative story: they are arguments primarily offered to justify one’s attitudes, and they are produced by our argumentative reasoning mechanism driven by the biological goal of presenting ourselves as good reasoners and as reliable sources of information.

Review article of Shona Illingworth's exhibition 'Lesions in the Landscape'.
CGP London: The Gallery/Dilston Grove, 13 October–27 November 2016.

Published in Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ)
Volume 7 · Number 1
doi: 10.1386/miraj.7.1.156_5

In part one, I clarify the crucial notion of "introspection", and give novel cases for the coherence of scenarios of local and global deception about how we access our own minds, drawing on empirical work. In part two, I evaluate a series of skeptical arguments based on such scenarios of error, and in each case explain why the skeptical argument fails. The first main upshot is that we should not overestimate what it takes to introspect: introspection need not be accurate, or non-inferential, or exclusive of perception, or even exclusive of confabulation. The second main upshot is that, while skeptical challenges by figures such as Carruthers, Doris, and Schwitzgebel are rich and empirically informed, these skeptical challenges founder on how they are epistemologically under-informed.

What is going on when we explain someone's belief by appeal to stereotypes associated with her gender, sexuality, race, or class? In this paper I try to motivate two claims. First, such explanations involve an overlooked form of epistemic injustice, which I call 'explanatory injustice'. Second, the language of reasons helps us shed light on the ways in which such injustice wrongs the victim qua epistemic agent.

Se conoce como falsos recuerdos la alteración o distorsión de un evento presenciado. Las personas en su relato llegan a afirmar con confianza que es correcto lo que están evocando sin embargo esto no es garantía de que un recuerdo en particular sea exacto. Basados principalmente en el estudio de Luna y Migueles del 2007 se realiza esta investigación teniendo como objetivo general determinar si el tiempo de retención influye de manera significativa en la aparición de falsos recuerdos el cual tiene dos tiempos, t1=0 y t2=48h en estudiantes de primer semestre de psicología de la Universidad de la Sabana. La investigación se realiza por medio de un estudio comparativo y esta evidencia que en el primero tiempo hay menos recuerdos falsos que en el segundo tiempo en donde se observa una presencia significativa de recuerdos falsos. Los resultados nos llevan a la afirmar que el tiempo de retención y posterior recuperación de información influye de manera considerable en la creación de estas confabulaciones conocidas como falsos recuerdos.

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.

According to some, such as Peter Carruthers (2009, 2010, 2011, 2015), the confabulation data (experimental data showing subjects making false psychological self-ascriptions) undermine the view that we can know our propositional attitudes by introspection. He believes that these data favour his Interpretive Sensory-Access (ISA) theory-the view that self-knowledge of our propositional attitudes always involves self-interpretation of our sensations, behaviour, or situational cues. This paper will review some of the confabulation data and conclude that the presence and pattern of these data do not substantiate the claim that we cannot introspect our propositional attitudes. As a consequence of this discussion, I conclude that the ISA theory is not well supported by the empirical data.

In this paper I discuss the costs and benefits of confabulation, focusing on the type of confabulation people engage in when they offer explanations for their attitudes and choices. What makes confabulation costly? In the philosophical literature confabulation is thought to undermine claims to self-knowledge. I argue that when people confabulate they do not necessarily fail at mental-state self-attributions, but offer ill-grounded explanations which often lead to the adoption of other ill-grounded beliefs. What, if anything, makes confabulation beneficial? As people are unaware of the information that would make their explanations accurate, they are not typically in a position to acknowledge their ignorance or provide better-grounded explanations for their attitudes and choices. In such cases, confabulating can have some advantages over offering no explanation because it makes a distinctive contribution to people's sense of themselves as competent and largely coherent agents. This role of ill-grounded explanations could not be as easily played by better-grounded explanations should these be available. In the end, I speculate about the implications of this conclusion for attempting to eliminate or reduce confabulation.

Indice del capitolo - AAA. Storie false e malfondate cercano definizione affidabile e referenziata/ Tipizzazioni interne, demarcazioni esterne, pluralismo causale/ Paradigma mnemonico/ Paradigma epistemico/ Confabulazione e filosofia delle scienze cognitive/ Conclusioni

Nel corso del capitolo sono state delineate le principali direttrici analitiche che orientano la ricerca empirica e teorica sulla confabulazione, intesa come sintomo comportamentale e verbale che accompagna una varietà di condizioni patologiche – neuropsicologiche e psichiatriche – e non patologiche. Nella confabulazione si coniugano due aspetti fondamentali: da un lato, un’elaborazione erronea di informazioni esperienziali rilevanti nell’ambito della situazione di rilevazione data e rispetto agli stimoli somministrati, che porta il soggetto a produrre narrazioni e report falsi o malfondati rispetto all’evidenza; dall’altro, la granitica convinzione soggettiva nella verità di tali affermazioni esclude che tali report erronei siano formulati in malafede, cioè con intenzione e coscienza di mentire. A partire dalla considerazione di alcune istanze cliniche, è stato impostato il problema della definizione: l’analisi delle definizioni operative, ristrette e allargate, finora disponibili in letteratura non si rende capace di fornire un terreno descrittivo univoco e consensuale. L’analisi delle distinzioni interne tra sottotipi di confabulazione (d’imbarazzo/severe, spontanee/provocate, primarie/secondarie) e dei problemi di demarcazione rispetto ad altre forme di falsa credenza (autoinganno, menzogna patologica, delirio) si rivela relativamente inconclusiva ai fini della determinazione dello statuto dei fenomeni confabulatori. Di conseguenza, in letteratura la modellistica eziologica (motivazionale e neuropsicologica) è notevolmente ampia e differenziata. Sono stati esaminati in particolare due paradigmi esplicativi fondamentali: il paradigma mnemonico che raccoglie modelli eterogenei accomunati dal fatto di indicare come condizione necessaria per la confabulazione la presenza di un deficit a livello delle funzioni mnemoniche; il paradigma epistemico, per il quale la confabulazione esprime un deficit epistemico, prodotto da un doppio errore – percettivo o mnemonico e di monitoraggio esecutivo – nell’elaborazione epistemica delle credenze. Sebbene entrambi i paradigmi siano, per ragioni diverse, esposti a obiezioni empiriche e concettuali rilevanti, si è voluto sottolineare come la ricerca sulla confabulazione costituisca un terreno estremamente fertile tanto per isolare e problematizzare delle tendenze fisiologiche della mente umana, quanto per esaminare in via differenziale sia meccanismi e circuiti mentali specifici, sia l’assetto e l’architettura di funzioni mentali complesse.

In times of increasing polarization and political acrimony, fueled by distrust of government and media disinformation, it is ever more important to understand the cognitive mechanisms behind political attitude change. In two experiments, we present evidence that false beliefs about one's own prior attitudes and confabulatory reasoning can lead to lasting changes in political attitudes. In Experiment 1 (N 140), participants stated their opinions about salient political issues, and using the Choice Blindness Paradigm we covertly altered some of their responses to indicate an opposite position. In the first condition, we asked the participants to immediately verify the manipulated responses, and in the second, we also asked them to provide underlying arguments behind their attitudes. Only half of the manipulations were corrected by the participants. To measure lasting attitude change, we asked the participants to rate the same issues again later in the experiment, as well as one week after the first session. Participants in both conditions exhibited lasting shifts in attitudes, but the effect was considerably larger in the group that confabulated supporting arguments. We fully replicated these findings in Experiment 2 (N 232). In addition, we found that participants' analytical skill correlated with their correction of the manipulation, whereas political involvement did not. This study contributes to the understanding of how confabulatory reasoning and self-perceptive processes can interact in lasting attitude change. It also highlights how political expressions can be both stable in the context of everyday life, yet flexible when argumentative processes are engaged.

A puzzling feature of confabulation is its selectivity: only some people confabulate in response to illness, and only some people resist correction of their inventions. So-called two-factor theories of delusion account for the latter sort of selectivity in terms of the failure of a belief evaluator. The first factor in delusion is a dysfunction in perceptual or cognitive processing and includes such cases as amnesia, feelings of unfamiliarity toward loved ones, or auditory hallucinations. Since first factor deficits do not always cause delusions, a second factor is postulated to explain the failure of delusional patients to revise the faulty beliefs produced by first-factor deficits. For some reason – endorsement and explanationist theories differ – delusional patients maintain false beliefs in the face of counter-evidence. I suggest that a Darwinian view of the mind can supplement two-factor theories of confabulation delusion by articulating the function of self-consciousness. If we suppose self-consciousness utilizes memories in order to maintain a sense of the self in time, then confabulation is an adaptive response to the absence of memories in order to maintain this function. Delusion differs from the everyday sort of confabulation that many of us experience in that delusions are accompanied by a second deficit in the capacity to reevaluate beliefs in light of contradictory evidence. By considering functions and failures of mental capacities, the debate between endorsement and explanationist accounts of delusion can be resolved.

In an ideal world, our beliefs would satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as foster the acquisition, retention, and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis. We may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, and beliefs that are elaborated delusional, motivated delusional, or optimistically biased.

In this book, Lisa Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where, in some contexts, the adoption, maintenance, or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence does not imply that the epistemic benefits of the irrational belief outweigh its epistemic costs, yet it clarifies the relationship between the epistemic and psychological effects of irrational beliefs on agency. It is misleading to assume that epistemic rationality and psychological adaptiveness always go hand-in-hand, but also that there is a straight-forward trade-off between them. Rather, epistemic irrationality can lead to psychological adaptiveness, which in turn can support the attainment of epistemic goals. Recognising the circumstances in which irrational beliefs enhance or restore epistemic performance informs our mutual interactions and enables us to take measures to reduce their irrationality without undermining the conditions for epistemic success.

There is no satisfactory account for the general phenomenon of confabulation, for the following reasons: (1) confabulation occurs in a number of pathological and non-pathological conditions; (2) impairments giving rise to confabulation are likely to have different neural bases; and (3) there is no unique theory explaining the aetiology of confabulations. An epistemic approach to defining confabulation could solve all of these issues, by focusing on the surface features of the phenomenon. However, existing epistemic accounts are unable to offer sufficient conditions for confabulation and tend to emphasise only its epistemic disadvantages. In this paper, we argue that a satisfactory epistemic account of confabulation should also acknowledge those features which are (potentially) epistemically advantageous. For example, confabulation may allow subjects to exercise some control over their own cognitive life which is instrumental to the construction or preservation of their sense of self.

There is no satisfactory account for the general phenomenon of confabulation, for the following reasons: (1) confabulation occurs in a number of pathological and non-pathological conditions; (2) impairments giving rise to confabulation are likely to have different neural bases; and (3) there is no unique theory explaining the aetiology of confabulations. An epistemic approach to defining confabulation could solve all of these issues, by focusing on the surface features of the phenomenon. However, existing epistemic accounts are unable to offer sufficient conditions for confabulation and tend to emphasise only its epistemic disadvantages. In this paper, we argue that a satisfactory epistemic account of confabulation should also acknowledge those features which are (potentially) epistemically advantageous. For example, confabulation may allow subjects to exercise some control over their own cognitive life which is instrumental to the construction or preservation of their sense of self.

Schopenhauer's views on how little we understand ourselves are examined with a view to isolating a particular issue: What has he too say about how, when we have reasons both for and against a contemplated action, we decide whether or not to perform it?

We implemented a Choice Blindness Paradigm containing political statements in Argentina to reveal the existence of categorical ranges of introspective reports, identified by confidence and agreement levels, separating easy from very hard to manipulate decisions. CBP was implemented in both live and web-based forms. Importantly, and contrary to what was observed in Sweden, we did not observe changes in voting intentions. Also, confidence levels in the manipulated replies where significantly lower than in non-manipulated cases even in undetected manipulations. We name this phenomenon unconscious detection of self-deception. Results also show that females are more difficult to manipulate than men.

Davidson and Kolnai in different ways emphasise that practical syllogistic reasoning can only tell one that one has a reason to do or not to do something.  It cannot adjudicate between conflicting reasons.  It can tell one the means to certain ends but not which ends to pursue.  This paper considers possible responses to this predicament.  What if anything can be done to put deliberation - the 'weighing' of competing reasons - on  a rational basis?

Ideally, we would have beliefs that satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as fostering the acquisition, retention and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis, and may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, elaborated delusional beliefs, motivated delusional beliefs, and optimistically biased beliefs. In the book, Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where the notion of epistemic innocence captures the fact that in some contexts the adoption, maintenance or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence is a weaker notion than epistemic justification, as it does not imply that the epist...

In everyday confabulation and rationalisation of behaviour, agents provide sincerely believed explanations of behaviour which are ill-grounded and normally inaccurate. In this paper, I look at the commonalities and differences between confabulations and rationalisations and investigate their moral costs and benefits. Following Summers and Velleman, I argue that both can be beneficial because they constrain future behaviour through self-consistency motivations. However, I then show that the same features that make confabulations and rationalisations beneficial in some cases can also make them morally costly, when behaviour is explained and justified through the endorsement of bad moral principles. I show that these effects are most likely to occur where the central element of confabulation, self-explanation, and the central element of rationalisation, self-justification, coincide.

False claims are a key feature of confabulation, delusion, and anosognosia. In this paper we consider the role of motivational factors in such claims. We review motivational accounts of each symptom and consider the evidence adduced in support of these accounts. In our view the evidence is strongly suggestive of a role for motivational factors in each domain. Before concluding, we widen the focus by outlining a tentative general taxonomy of false claims, including false claims that occur in clinical settings as well as more garden-variety false claims, and incorporating both motivational and non-motivational approaches to explaining such claims.

Exceptionalism is the view that one group is better than other groups and, by virtue of its alleged superiority, is not subject to the same constraints. Here we identify national exceptionalism in the responses made by political leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom to the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. First, we observe that responses appealed to national values and national character and were marked by a denial of the severity of the situation. Second, we suggest an analogy between national exceptionalism and unrealistic optimism, i.e., people’s tendency to make rosier predictions about their future than is warranted by the evidence due to illusions of superiority and control. Finally, we argue that, at the national level, exceptionalism gave rise to an assumption of invulnerability that made for slow responses to the pandemic, and at the individual level, it served as a justification of people’s failures to adopt safety behaviors.

Delusions and confabulations occurring in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, amnesic syndromes, and dementia, are defined on the basis of their surface features. In particular, they are classified and diagnosed as beliefs that violate norms of rationality. In this paper the author argues that current epistemic accounts fail to provide sufficient conditions for delusions and confabulations. Moreover, the identified epistemic faults cannot serve as criteria of demarcation between pathological and non-pathological beliefs.

Confabulation is a drawing together through storytelling. Fundamental to our perception, memory and thought is the way we join fractured experiences to construct a narrative. Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture weaves together poetic ideas, objects and events and returns you to everyday experiences of life through juxtapositions with dreams, fantasies and hypotheticals. It follows the intellectual and creative framework of architectural cosmopoesis developed and practiced by the distinguished thinker, architect and professor Dr. Marco Frascari, who thought deeply about the role of storytelling in architecture.

In this paper I explore the nature of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias. I claim that such explanations can have significant epistemic benefits in spite of their obvious epistemic costs, and that such benefits are not otherwise obtainable by the subject at the time at which the explanation is offered. I start by outlining the kinds of cases I have in mind, before characterising the phenomenon of confabulation by focusing on a few common features. Then I introduce the notion of epistemic innocence to capture the epistemic status of those cognitions which have both obvious epistemic faults and some significant epistemic benefit. A cognition is epistemically innocent if it delivers some epistemic benefit to the subject which would not be attainable otherwise because alternative (less epistemically faulty) cognitions that could deliver the same benefit are unavailable to the subject at that time. I ask whether confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias have epistemic benefits and whether there are genuine alternatives to forming a confabulatory explanation in the circumstances in which subjects confabulate. On the basis of my analysis of confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias, I argue that such explanations have the potential for epistemic innocence. I conclude that epistemic evaluation
of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias ought to tell a richer story, one which takes into account the context in which the explanation occurs.

In psychiatry some disorders of cognition are distinguished from instances of normal cognitive functioning and from other disorders in virtue of their surface features rather than in virtue of the underlying mechanisms responsible for their occurrence. Aetiological considerations often cannot play a significant classificatory and diagnostic role, because there is no sufficient knowledge or consensus about the causal history of many psychiatric disorders. Moreover, it is not always possible to uniquely identify a pathological behaviour as the symptom of a certain disorder, as disorders that are likely to differ both in their causal histories and in their overall manifestations may give rise to very similar patterns of behaviour.

Consider delusions as an example. It wouldn’t be correct to define delusions as those beliefs people form as a result of a neurobiological deficit and a hypothesis-evaluation deficit (as some versions of the two-factor theory of delusions suggest), because for some delusions no neurobiological deficit may be found, and reasoning biases and motivational factors may be contributors to the formation of the delusion (e.g. McKay et al., 2005). Moreover, it would be a mistake to define delusions as symptoms of schizophrenia alone, because they occur also in other disorders, including dementia, amnesia, and delusional disorders. Thus, aetiological considerations may appear in the description and analysis of delusions, but do not feature prominently in their definition.

In this paper I argue that the surface features used as criteria for the classification and diagnosis of disorders of cognition are often epistemic in character. I shall offer two examples: confabulations and delusions are defined as beliefs or narratives that fail to meet standards of accuracy and justification. Although classifications and diagnoses based on features of people’s observable behaviour are necessary at these early stages of neuropsychiatric research, given the variety of conditions in which certain phenomena appear, I shall attempt to show that current epistemic accounts of confabulations and delusions have limitations. Epistemic criteria can guide both research and clinical practice, but fail to provide sufficient conditions for the identification of delusions and confabulations, and fail to demarcate pathological from non-pathological narratives or beliefs.

Another limitation of current epistemic accounts – which I shall not address here – is the excessive focus on epistemic faults of confabulations and delusions at the expense of their epistemically neutral or advantageous features (see Bortolotti and Cox, 2009). This may lead to a misconception of delusions and confabulations, and to an oversimplification in the assessment of the needs of people who require clinical treatment for their psychotic symptoms.

In section 1, I shall introduce epistemic definitions of delusions and confabulations. In section 2, I shall detail three ways in which delusions and confabulations infringe norms of rationality for beliefs. In section 3, I shall ask whether the pathological character of delusions and confabulations can be cashed out in terms of their epistemic faults. I shall conclude that it cannot, because even if delusions and confabulations are irrational, most non-pathological beliefs are also irrational, maybe to a lesser extent, but in qualitatively similar ways. In order to make this point, I shall show how the conditions listed in current epistemic definitions are not sufficient to distinguish clinical cases of delusions and confabulations from beliefs and behaviours that are common in the general population and are not necessarily associated with any psychiatric disorder.

When subject to the choice-blindness effect, an agent gives reasons for making choice B, moments after making the alternative choice A. Choice blindness has been studied in a variety of contexts, from consumer choice and aesthetic judgement to moral and political attitudes. The pervasiveness and robustness of the effect is regarded as powerful evidence of self-ignorance. Here we compare two interpretations of choice blindness. On the choice error interpretation, when the agent gives reasons she is in fact wrong about what her choice is. On the choice change interpretation, when the agent gives reasons she is right about what her choice is, but she does not realise that her choice has changed. In this paper, we spell out the implications of the two interpretations of the choice-blindness effect for self-ignorance claims and offer some reasons to prefer choice change to choice error.