Nonveridical

Nonveridical is an adjective used to describe representations, perceptions, memories, or beliefs that do not accurately reflect the way things actually are in the external world. In philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science, something is nonveridical when it fails to meet the truth conditions required for a correct representation of reality. Veridical experiences, by contrast, accurately track aspects of the world.

In perceptual terms, nonveridical phenomena include illusions and hallucinations. Illusions produce consistent misperceptions of real stimuli, such as a straight stick appearing bent when partially submerged in water. Hallucinations occur without external stimuli and still present sensory content. Nonveridical memory refers to recall that is distorted or false, such as misremembered events or misattributions of source. Dreams are often cited as nonveridical experiences because their content typically does not correspond to waking reality.

The concept is not merely binary; many theories allow degrees of accuracy or reliability in a representation. Nonveridical content can still be informative about the processes that generate it, revealing how sensory systems or memory mechanisms operate, even when the content does not correspond to actual states of the world.

Etymology derives from veridicus, meaning truthful; the prefix non- signals the opposite. The term is widely used to analyze epistemic justification and the reliability of perception, memory, and belief formation in contexts where truth-tracking is imperfect.