Confabulation

Confabulation: when people fabricate reasons to explain their own behaviour.

In split brain patients studied by Gazzaniga- patients seem to have an 'explanation' for a certain action eventhough the language centre of the brain ('the interpreter module') has no access to the real cause or motives of the person's behaviour.

The 'interpreter module' is situated in the left brain. When the right brain is flashed with the word 'walk', the patient might stand up and walk away. When asked why he is getting up, he might say, "I'm going to get a Coke." The interpreter module is good at making up explanations, but not at knowing it had done so.

All these on confabulation, above, I got from Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis, page 8-9. (Randomhouse, UK) He goes on at page 21:

“Moral judgement is like aesthetic judgment, when you see a painting, you usually know instantly and automatically whether you like it. If someone asks you to explain your judgement, you confabulate. You don’t really know why you think something is beautiful, but your interpreter module is skilled at making up reasons, as Gazzaniga found in his split-brain studies. You search for a plausible reason for liking the painting, and you latch on to the first reason that makes sense (maybe something vague about colour, or light, or the reflection of the painter in the clown’s shiny nose).”

“Moral arguments are much the same: Two people feel strongly about an issue, their feelings come first, and their reasons are invented on the fly, to throw at each other. When you refute a person’s argument, does she generally change her mind and agree with you? Of course not, because the argument you defended was not the cause of her position; it was made up after the judgement was already made.”