n. an implicit memory phenomenon in which people mistakenly believe that a current thought or idea is a product of their own creation when, in fact, they have encountered it previously and then forgotten it. Cryptomnesia can occur in any creative enterprise, as for example when an investigator develops a research idea that he or she believes is original whereas in actuality it can be documented that he or she saw or heard the idea at some earlier point in time. Also called inadvertent plagiarism; unconscious plagiarism.