What causes deja vu psychology
Here we describe such phenomena as dissociative since they arguably all converge on the idea that a “feeling” or “experience” becomes dissociated from a process, as has been argued for other subjective experiences, such as the Tip-of-the-Tongue state (Schwartz & Metcalfe, 2011). For example, jamais vu (“never seen”) is often operationsationalised as being the reverse of déjà vu the subjective experience of unreality or unfamiliarity for a stimulus known to be familiar.ĭéjà vu has variously been described as a misattribution (captured in the quote above Schacter, 2002) an illusion (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989 Penfield & Perot, 1963) and a cognitive or “epistemic” feeling (da Sousa, 2009 Moulin & Souchay, 2014). In emphasising this dissociation we are deliberately aligning the experience with other instances where metacognitive or subjective processes become divorced from the current goals of processing. As such, déjà vu can be described as a dissociative experience, resulting from a metacognitive evaluation (the certainty) of a lower-level memory process (the familiarity).
It can be described as having two critical components: an intense feeling of familiarity, and a certainty that the current moment is novel.
91)In recent years, déjà vu has become of great interest in cognition, where it is mostly seen as a memory illusion. This is hard-won knowledge with potentially vital consequences for society: misattribution can alter our lives in strange and unexpected ways. Though we know little more about déjà vu today than we did back in the days of Arnaud over a century ago, we have learned a great deal about other forms of misattribution.