In psychology, the misattribution of memory or source misattribution is the misidentification of the origin of a memory by the person making the memory recall. Misattribution is likely to occur when individuals are unable to monitor and control the influence of their attitudes, toward their judgments, at the time of retrieval. Misattribution is divided into three components: cryptomnesia, false memories, and source confusion. It was originally noted as one of Daniel Schacter's seven sins of memory. Components of misattribution Cryptomnesia Cryptomnesia is a form of misattribution. It involves the unconscious influence of memory that causes current thoughts to be wrongfully attributed as novel. In other words, individuals mistakenly believe that they are the original generators of the thought. When cryptomnesia arises in literature or scholarly ideas it is often termed 'inadvertent plagiarism', inadvertent because the subject genuinely believes the idea to be their own creation. Inadvertent plagiarism takes two forms. The first involves the plagiarizer regenerating a previously seen idea, but believing the idea to be novel. In the second form, the plagiarizer recalls the ideas of other author's as their own. For example, a person may falsely recall creating an idea, thought, or joke, not intentionally engaging in plagiarism, but nevertheless believing to be the original source of memory. False memory False memories are memories that individuals believe and recall as true that, in fact, never occurred. Often, people form false memories for details of events after hearing others mistakenly report information about an event. For example, participants who watch a video of a crime featuring a blue car but hear the car misleadingly referred to as white after the fact may create a false memory of a white car present at the scene of the crime, rather than a blue one. False memories can range from small details about an event to entire events that never happened, such as being lost in a crowded shopping mall as a child. Source confusion Source confusion is an attribute seen in different people's accounts of the same event after hearing people speak about the situation. An example of this would be, a witness who heard a police officer say he had a gun and then that witness later says they saw the gun. Understanding the source of one's memories is important to memory processes necessary for every day living. Memories arise both from perceptual experiences and from one's thoughts, feelings, inferences,