Abstracts having to do with déjà experiences where there was no diagnosed pathology
The abstracts are listed in reverse chronological order: the more recent ones are listed first.
In the older literature, there were other terms used for déjà vu: paramnesia, fausse reconnaissance (French), Erinnerungsfälschung or -täuschung (German) and so on. You'll encounter these if you scroll down to the early abstracts (i.e., before 1910 or so).
For those that were published without an abstract (or for which we could not locate one) we have tried to provide some information from the paper or book. We are sure we have not done justice to many of them and would be grateful for suggestions for amendment or correction. There are still many that we have not been able to find abstracts for or make comments on.
To find an author, year, or a specific word, perform a search using CTRL-F.
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Towards a conflict account of déjà vu: The role of memory errors and memory expectation conflict in the experience of déjà vu
Aitken CBA1, Jentzsch I2, O'Connor AR2
1. School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews. Electronic address:
2. School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. Nov 16:105467, 2023.
doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105467. Online ahead of print.
Abstract
Déjà vu can be defined as conflict between a subjective evaluation of familiarity and a concurrent evaluation of novelty. Accounts of the déjà vu experience have not explicitly referred to a "conflict account of déjà vu" despite the acceptance of conflict-based definitions of déjà vu and relatively recent neuroimaging work that has implicated brain areas associated with conflict as underpinning the experience. Conflict monitoring functioning follows a similar age-related trajectory to déjà vu with a peak in young adulthood and a subsequent age-related decline. In this narrative review of the literature to date, we consider how déjà vu is defined and how this has influenced the understanding of déjà vu. We also review how déjà vu can be understood within theories of recognition memory and cognitive control. Finally, we summarise the conflict account of déjà vu and propose that this account of the experience may provide a coherent explanation as to why déjà vu experiences tend to decrease with age in the non-clinical population.
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Further advancing theories of retrieval of the personal past
Barzykowski K1, Moulin CJA 2,3
1. Applied Memory Research Laboratory, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
2. Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
3. Institut Universitaire de France.
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e384, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23002765. PMID: 37961810
Abstract
In our target article, we presented the idea that involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and déjà vu may both be based on the same retrieval processes. Our core claim was thus straightforward: Both can be described as "involuntary" or spontaneous cognitions, where IAMs deliver content and déjà vu delivers only the feeling of retrieval. Our proposal resulted in 27 commentaries covering a broad range of perspectives and approaches. The majority of them have not only amplified our key arguments but also pushed our ideas further by offering extensions, refinements, discussing possible implications and providing additional empirical, neuroscientific and clinical support. The discussion launched by the commentaries proves to us the importance of bringing IAMs and déjà vu into mainstream discussions of memory retrieval processes.
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‘Déjà Vu’, a Mind Trick or a Warning Sign? A Case Report
Francisco, CM, Ribeiro, JF, Rodrigues, AM, Oliveira, RS, Carvalho, P
Serviço de Pediatria. Hospital Sousa Martins. Unidade Local de Saúde da Guarda. Guarda. Portugal.
Acta Med Port 36(10):689-694, 2023
https://www.actamedicaportuguesa.com/revista/index.php/amp/article/view/20116/15237
PMID: 37788652 https://doi.org/10.20344/amp.20116
Letter to the editor
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Distinguishing involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu experiences: Different types of cues and memory representations?
Kvavilashvili L, Markostamou I
Psychology Division, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK
https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/lia-kvavilashvili(48d7e4e1-c235-4f92-9f13-8832aae8f2f2).html
https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/ioanna-markostamou(4747a504-fa5e-4035-9652-bb4abdb6b38c).html.
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e366, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000080. PMID: 37961821
Abstract
Although involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and déjà vu have important shared characteristics, in this commentary, we focus on potential differences that may question the argument that two phenomena lie on a continuum. We propose that differences in their frequency and autonoetic consciousness could be explained by different types of cues and memory representations involved in experiencing IAMs and déjà vu.
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Opening a conceptual space for metamemory experience
Neisser J1, Abreu G1, Drane DL2,3, Pedersen NP4,5, Parsons TD6, Cleary AM7
1 Department of Philosophy, Grinnell College, 1120 Park St, Grinnell, IA, 50112, USA.
2 Department of Neurology, Emory University, 101 Woodruff Circle, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
3 Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA.
4 Department of Pediatrics, Emory University, 101 Woodruff Circle, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
5 Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
6 Simulation Science & Immersive Technology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA.
7 Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80525, USA.
New Ideas Psychol. 69:100995, 2023.
doi: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.100995. Epub 2022 Nov 19. PMID: 38223256
PMCID: PMC10786624 (available on 2024-04-01)
Abstract
The experiences associated with remembering, including metamemory feelings about the act of remembering and attempts at remembering, are not often integrated into general accounts of memory. For example, David Rubin (2022) proposes a unified, three-dimensional conceptual space for mapping memory states, a map that does not systematically specify metamemory feelings. Drawing on Rubin's model, we define a distinct role for metamemory in relation to first-order memory content. We propose a fourth dimension for the model and support the proposal with conceptual, neurocognitive, and clinical lines of reasoning. We use the modified model to illustrate several cases, and show how it helps to conceptualize a new category of memory state: autonoetic knowing, exemplified by déjà vu. We also caution not to assume that memory experience is directly correlated with or caused by memory content, an assumption Tulving (1989) labeled the doctrine of concordance.
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A virtual reality paradigm with dynamic scene stimuli for use in memory research
Okada NS1, McNeely-White KL2, Cleary AM3, Carlaw BN3, Drane DL4,5,6, Parsons TD7,8, McMahan T9, Neisser J10, Pedersen NP11,12
1 Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
2 Department of Neurology, University of California Davis, Sacramento, CA, 95816, USA.
3 Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
4 Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
5 Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
6 Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA.
7 Grace Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA.
8 Computational Neuropsychology & Simulation (CNS) Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA.
9 Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76203, USA.
10 Department of Philosophy, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, 50112, USA.
11 Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
12 Department of Neurology, University of California Davis, Sacramento, CA, 95816, USA.
Behav Res Methods. Oct 16, 2023.
doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02243-w. Online ahead of print. PMID: 37845424
Episodic memory may essentially be memory for one's place within a temporally unfolding scene from a first-person perspective. Given this, pervasively used static stimuli may only capture one small part of episodic memory. A promising approach for advancing the study of episodic memory is immersing participants within varying scenes from a first-person perspective. We present a pool of distinct scene stimuli for use in virtual environments and a paradigm that is implementable across varying levels of immersion on multiple virtual reality (VR) platforms and adaptable to studying various aspects of scene and episodic memory. In our task, participants are placed within a series of virtual environments from a first-person perspective and guided through a virtual tour of scenes during a study phase and a test phase. In the test phase, some scenes share a spatial layout with studied scenes; others are completely novel. In three experiments with varying degrees of immersion, we measure scene recall, scene familiarity-detection during recall failure, the subjective experience of déjà vu, the ability to predict the next turn on a tour, the subjective sense of being able to predict the next turn on a tour, and the factors that influence memory search and the inclination to generate candidate recollective information. The level of first-person immersion mattered to multiple facets of episodic memory. The paradigm presents a useful means of advancing mechanistic understanding of how memory operates in realistic dynamic scene environments, including in combination with cognitive neuroscience methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiology.
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Déjà vu may be illusory gist identification
Pan S, Carruthers P
Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
https://sites.google.com/site/theshenpan/
https://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/pcarruthers/.
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e371, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000195. PMID: 37961793
No Abstract
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Accommodating the continuum hypothesis with the déjà vu/déjà vécu distinction
Perrin D
Centre for Philosophy of Memory/Institut de Philosophie de Grenoble, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France
https://phil-mem.org/members/perrin.php.
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e372, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000225. PMID: 37961835
Abstract
On Barzykowski and Moulin's continuum hypothesis, déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) share their underpinning neurocognitive processes. A discontinuity issue for them is that familiarity and episodic recollection exhibit different neurocognitive signatures. This issue can be overcome, I say, provided the authors are ready to distinguish a déjà vécu/episodic IAM continuity and a déjà vu/semantic IAM continuity.
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From jamais to déjà vu: The respective roles of semantic and episodic memory in novelty monitoring and involuntary memory retrieval
Renoult L1, Debruille JB2
1. School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/louis-renoult.
2. Department of Neuroscience, Frank B. Common Pavilion, Douglas Hospital Research Center, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
https://www.mcgill.ca/psychiatry/bruno-debruille.
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e373, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000158.
PMID: 37961792
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X23000158
Abstract
Barzykowski and Moulin's model proposes that déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories are the result of a continuously active memory system that tracks the novelty of situations. Déjà vu would only have episodic content and concern interpretation of prior experiences. We argue that these aspects of the model would gain to be clarified and explored further and we suggest possible directions.
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Déjà vu: A botched memory operation, illegitimate to start with
Stendardi D1, Basu A2, Treves A2, Ciaramelli E1
1. Dipartimento di Psicologia 'Renzo Canestrari', Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
2. SISSA, Cognitive Neuroscience, Trieste, Italy
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e378, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X2300016X. PMID: 37961795
Abstract
Rather than a natural product, a computational analysis leads us to characterize déjà vu as a failure of memory retrieval, linked to the activation in neocortex of familiar items from a compositional memory in the absence of hippocampal input, and to a misappropriation by the self of what is of others.
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Involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu: When and why attention makes a difference
Vannucci M1, Hanczakowski M2
1. Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health (NEUROFARBA) - Section of Psychology, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy
https://www.unifi.it/p-doc2-2022-0-A-2b333d2b3928-0.html.
2. Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e379, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000031. PMID: 37961794
Abstract
The target article claims that involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu are based on the same retrieval processes, although they result in different phenomenological states. Here we argue that the differential engagement of attention at various stages of memory may be one of the determinants of when common retrieval processes give rise to such different experiences.
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Evolutionary mismatch and anomalies in the memory system
Veit W1, Browning H2
1 Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
2 Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Behav Brain Sci. Nov 14:46:e381, 2023.
doi: 10.1017/S0140525X23000183. PMID: 37961816
Abstract
In order to understand involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu experiences, we argue that it is important to take an evolutionary medicine perspective. Here, we propose that these memory anomalies can be understood as the outcomes of an inevitable design trade-off between type I and type II errors in memory processing.
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Piquing Curiosity: Déjà vu-Like States Are Associated with Feelings of Curiosity and Information-Seeking Behaviors
McNeely-White K.L.1,Cleary A. M.2
1 Department of Neurology, University of California, Davis, CA 95618, USA.
2 Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
Journal of Intelligence 11(6):112, 2023.
PMID: 37367514 PMCID: PMC10299614 DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence11060112
Abstract
Curiosity during learning increases information-seeking behaviors and subsequent memory retrieval success, yet the mechanisms that drive curiosity and its accompanying information-seeking behaviors remain elusive. Hints throughout the literature suggest that curiosity may result from a metacognitive signal-possibly of closeness to a not yet accessible piece of information-that in turn leads the experiencer to seek out additional information that will resolve a perceptibly small knowledge gap. We examined whether metacognition sensations thought to signal the likely presence of an as yet unretrieved relevant memory (such as familiarity or déjà vu) might be involved. Across two experiments, when cued recall failed, participants gave higher curiosity ratings during reported déjà vu (Experiment 1) or déjà entendu (Experiment 2), and these states were associated with increased expenditure of limited experimental resources to discover the answer. Participants also spent more time attempting to retrieve information and generated more incorrect information when experiencing these déjà vu-like states than when not. We propose that metacognition signaling of the possible presence of an as yet unretrieved but relevant memory may drive curiosity and prompt information-seeking that includes further search efforts.
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The phenomenology of autobiographical retrieval
Moulin C.J.A1,2, Carreras F1, Barzykowski K3
1 Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition (LPNC CNRS 5105), Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
2 Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
3 Applied Memory Research Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. Dec 2; e1638, 2022
doi: 10.1002/wcs.1638. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36458642
Abstract
In this article we review the literature on the phenomenology of retrieval from the personal past, and propose a framework for understanding how epistemic feelings and metacognitive reflections guide the retrieval of representations of past events in the Self Memory System. Our focus is on an overlooked aspect of autobiographical memory, the phenomenology of the retrieval process, as opposed to the products of retrieval themselves. As we argue in the present paper, this is not some magical collection of phenomena, but centers on the feeling of familiarity derived from retrieval fluency during the process of retrieval. The relationship between retrieval fluency and retrieved content, interpreted metacognitively is what gives autobiographical retrieval its particular phenomenological "flavor." To illustrate our point, we focus on two phenomena that only recently were considered alongside each other: the déjà vu experience and involuntary autobiographical memories. Our proposal is that the feeling of familiarity (i.e., this reminds me of something) for the personal past acts to guide deliberate, conscious memory search. We argue that the critical concept in the phenomenology of retrieval is fluency-how readily information comes to mind.
152 references
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What déjà vu and the "dreamy state" tell us about episodic memory networks
Gillinder L1, Liegeois-Chauvel C2, Chauvel P3
1 Mater Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; Cortical Systems Lab, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA. Electronic address:
2 Cortical Systems Lab, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA.
3 Mater Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; Department of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA.
Clinical Neurophysiology 136:173-181, 2022.
doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2022.01.126. PMID: 35189480
Abstract
Illusions of inappropriate familiarity with the current experience or hallucinatory recall of memories are reported in temporal lobe seizures. Pathophysiological hypotheses have been proposed, involving temporal limbic regions (Hughlings-Jackson), temporal neocortex ("interpretive cortex", Penfield), or both (Bancaud). Recent data acquired from presurgical investigations using intracerebral electrode recordings, demonstrate a critical role for the sub- and para-hippocampal cortices. From this, a novel hypothesis of cortico-limbic networks emerged: déjà-vu results from an abnormal synchronization between rhinal cortices and hippocampus, and reminiscences ("dreamy state") from activation of the associational function of the hippocampus in re-assembling elements of the past experience networks. "Experiential" phenomena are better scrutinized during direct cortical stimulation than during spontaneous occurrence, because it allows precise spatiotemporal correlations to be made between the illusion/hallucination and the electrical discharge features and localization. Therefore, we present a summary of the stimulation data published since Penfield's seminal studies, review the anatomical and physiological correlations of stimulation findings, and question their functional significance. We reappraise the distinct and coactive roles of the various regions involved in perception-memory processes including the hippocampus, rhinal cortices, temporal neocortex and constituent elements of the ventral stream. Additionally, we draw insights from what is known about the perception-cognition continuum underlying the construction of episodic memories. Finally, we compare the results from cortical stimulation in the epileptogenic zone with the use of stimulation for memory enhancement and explore what this reveals about the mechanisms of stimulation.
Copyright © 2022 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. All rights reserved.
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What is déjà vu? [Article in Portuguese]
Fabiano de Abreu Rodrigues
Brazilian Journal of Development 8(1):3227-3233, 2022.
DOI: 10.34117/bjdv8n1-212
Déjà vu is a French term that describes a psychological phenomenon that causes illusory sensations of familiarity between a real present situation and a past event of unknown origin. The objective of the present article is to review the literature on the Déjà Vu phenomenon, broadening its conception, understanding its formation components and its relationship with psychological and dissociative disturbances.
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A postdictive bias associated with déjà vu
Cleary AM1, Huebert AM2, McNeely-White KL2, Spahr KS2.
Psychon Bull Rev. 26(4):1433-1439, 2019.
doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01578-w.
1 Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
2 Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
Abstract
Recent research links reports of déjà vu - the feeling of having experienced something before despite knowing otherwise - with an illusory feeling of prediction. In the present study, a new finding is presented in which reports of déjà vu are associated not only with a predictive bias, but also with a postdictive bias, whereby people are more likely to feel that an event unfolded as expected after the event prompted déjà vu than after it did not. During a virtual tour, feelings of predicting the next turn were more likely during reported déjà vu, as in prior research. Then, after actually seeing the turn, participants exhibited a postdictive bias toward feeling that the scene unfolded as expected following déjà vu reports. This postdictive bias following déjà vu reports was associated with higher perceived scene familiarity intensity. A potential reason for this association may be that high familiarity intensity as an event outcome unfolds falsely signals confirmatory evidence of having sensed all along how it would unfold. Future research should further investigate this possibility.
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Déjà vu and the feeling of prediction: an association with familiarity strength
Cleary AM, McNeely-White KL, Huebert AM, Claxton AB.
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Memory Nov 1:1-17 2018.
doi: 10.1080/09658211.2018.1503686. [Epub ahead of print]
Abstract
A recent laboratory study by Cleary and Claxton [2018. Déjà vu: An illusion of prediction. Psychological Science, 29(4), 635-644. [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617743018] documented a relationship between déjà vu and feelings of premonition. During instances of retrieval failure, participants reported stronger feelings of prediction during déjà vu than non-déjà vu states, despite displaying no actual predictive ability in such instances. The present study further explored the link between déjà vu reports and feelings of prediction. Although feelings of prediction were more likely to occur during reports of déjà vu than non-déjà vu, they were not the sole defining feature of déjà vu, accounting for just over half of all reported déjà vu states. Instances of déjà vu that were accompanied by feelings of prediction were associated with greater feelings of familiarity than instances that were not. This was shown by a greater likelihood of reporting that the scene felt familiar and also by a higher rated intensity of the feeling of familiarity elicited by the scene when it did feel familiar. Though the present study was mainly descriptive in characterising the interrelations between déjà vu, feelings of prediction, and familiarity, the full pattern points toward the possibility that high familiarity intensity may contribute to the feeling of prediction during déjà vu.
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Hippocampal involvement in nonpathological déjà vu: Subfield vulnerability rather than temporal lobe epilepsy equivalent
Pešlová E1, Mareček R1,2, Shaw DJ3, Kašpárek T3,4, Pail M1, Brázdil M1,3.
1 Department of Neurology, Brno Epilepsy Center, St. Anne's University Hospital and Medical Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
2 Multi-modal and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group, CEITEC - Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
3 Behavioral and Social Neuroscience Research Group, CEITEC - Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
4 Department of Psychiatry, Faculty Hospital Brno and Medical Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
Brain Behavior 8(7):e00996. 2018 doi: 10.1002/brb3.996. Epub 2018 Jun 5.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:
Morphological correlates of nonpathological déjà vu (DV) have been identified recently within the human brain. Significantly reduced gray matter volume (GMV) within a set of cortical and subcortical regions reported in subjects experiencing DV seems to mirror the distribution of GMV reduction in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) patients but vary in terms of the hippocampus. Another condition associated with hippocampal GMV reduction and DV alike disturbance in memory processing is schizophrenia (SCH). Here, we tested the hypothesis that hippocampal involvement in nonpathological DV resembles more closely the pattern of GMV decrease observed in MTLE compared with that occurring in SCH.
METHODS:
Using automated segmentation of the MRI data we compared the medians of GMV within 12 specific hippocampal subfields in healthy individuals that do (DV+; N = 87) and do not report déjà vu experience (DV-; N = 26), and patients with MTLE (N = 47) and SCH (N = 29). By Pearson correlation, we then evaluated the similarity of MTLE and SCH groups to DV+ group with respect to spatial distribution of GMV deviation from DV- group.
RESULTS:
Significant GMV decrease was found in MTLE group in most of the subfields. There were just trends in the hippocampal GMV decrease found in DV+ or SCH groups. Concerning the spatial distribution of GMV decrease, we revealed statistically significant correlation for the left hippocampus for SCH vs DV+. Otherwise there was no statistically significant correlation.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings reveal structural features of hippocampal involvement in nonpathological DV, MTLE, and SCH. Despite our expectations, the pattern of GMV reduction in the DV+ relative to the DV- group does not resemble the pattern observed in MTLE any more than that observed in SCH. The highly similar patterns of the three clinical groups rather suggest an increased vulnerability of certain hippocampal subfields; namely, Cornu Ammonis (CA)4, CA3, dentate gyrus granular cell layer (GC-DG), hippocampal-amygdaloid transition area (HATA) and subiculum.
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Déjà vécu and déjà visité similarities and differences: Further results from an online investigation
Funkhouser A, Purser H
Explore 14(4):277-282, 2018
Abstract
Over an eight year period, an online questionnaire, devised as a pilot project, collected exploratory data in order to compare the particularities of déjà vécu (i.e., event-related) experiences with those of déjà visité (i.e., location-related). In a previous paper it was shown that there are sufficient differences in the results for these two experiences to warrant considering them as being separate entities. Here, additional analyses have established a number of relationships that differ across the two phenomena. Their elucidation will require further investigations with improved research instruments and the studied population will have to be broader based in order to establish if the relationships determined here will be found to be true in the general population.
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Déjà Vu: An Illusion of Prediction
Cleary AM, Claxton AB.
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University
Psychol Sci. 29(4):635-644, 2018 doi: 10.1177/0956797617743018. Epub 2018 Mar 1.
Abstract
Déjà vu is beginning to be scientifically understood as a memory phenomenon. Despite recent scientific advances, a remaining puzzle is the purported association between déjà vu and feelings of premonition. Building on research showing that déjà vu can be driven by an unrecalled memory of a past experience that relates to the current situation, we sought evidence of memory-based predictive ability during déjà vu states. Déjà vu did not lead to above-chance ability to predict the next turn in a navigational path resembling a previously experienced but unrecalled path (although such resemblance increased reports of déjà vu). However, déjà vu states were accompanied by increased feelings of knowing the direction of the next turn. The results suggest that feelings of premonition during déjà vu occur and can be illusory. Metacognitive bias brought on by the state itself may explain the peculiar association between déjà vu and the feeling of premonition.
PMID: 29494276 DOI: 10.1177/0956797617743018
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Déjà vecu for news events but not personal events: A dissociation between autobiographical and non-autobiographical episodic memory processing
Turner MS1, Shores EA2, Breen N3, Coltheart M4.
1 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK; Formerly of Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Department of Clinical Neuropsychology and Clinical Health Psychology, St Georges University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Electronic address:
2 Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
3 Formerly of Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
4 Formerly of Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders and Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Cortex 87:142-155, 2017 doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.11.006. Epub 2016 Nov 18.
Abstract
In déjà vu, the feeling that what we are currently experiencing we have experienced before is fleeting and is not accepted as true. In contrast, in déjà vecu or "recollective confabulation", the sense of déjà vu is persistent and convincing, and patients genuinely believe that they have lived through the current moment at some previous time. In previous reports of cases of déjà vecu, both personal events and non-personal, world events gave rise to this experience. In this paper we describe a patient whose déjà vecu experiences are entirely restricted to non-personal events, suggesting that autobiographical and non-autobiographical episodic memory processing can dissociate. We suggest that this dissociation is secondary to differences in the degree to which personal and emotional associations are formed for these two different types of event, and offer a two-factor theory of déjà vecu.
PMID: 27939361 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.11.006
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Investigating the Role of Assessment Method on Reports of Déjà Vu and Tip-of-the-Tongue States during Standard Recognition Tests
Jersakova R1, Moulin CJ2, O'Connor AR3
1 School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, United Kingdom.
2 LPNC-CNRS UMR 5105, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
3 School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom
PLoS ONE 11(4): e0154334, 2016 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0154334
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154334
Abstract
Déjà vu and tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) are retrieval-related subjective experiences whose study relies on participant self-report. In four experiments (ns = 224, 273, 123 and 154), we explored the effect of questioning method on reported occurrence of déjà vu and TOT in experimental settings. All participants carried out a continuous recognition task, which was not expected to induce déjà vu or TOT, but were asked about their experiences of these subjective states. When presented with contemporary definitions, between 32% and 58% of participants nonetheless reported experiencing déjà vu or TOT. Changing the definition of déjà vu or asking participants to bring to mind a real-life instance of déjà vu or TOT before completing the recognition task had no impact on reporting rates. However, there was an indication that changing the method of requesting subjective reports impacted reporting of both experiences. More specifically, moving from the commonly used retrospective questioning (e.g. “Have you experienced déjà vu?”) to free report instructions (e.g. “Indicate whenever you experience déjà vu.”) reduced the total number of reported déjà vu and TOT occurrences. We suggest that research on subjective experiences should move toward free report assessments. Such a shift would potentially reduce the presence of false alarms in experimental work, thereby reducing the overestimation of subjective experiences prevalent in this area of research.
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The Royal Road to Time: How Understanding of the Evolution of Time in the Brain Addresses Memory, Dreaming, Flow, and Other Psychological Phenomena
Hancock PA
The American Journal of Psychology 128(1): 1-14, 2015
DOI: 10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.1.0001
Abstract
It has been claimed that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious mind. The present work argues that dreams and associated brain states such as memory, attention, flow, and perhaps even consciousness itself arise from diverse conflicts over control of time in the brain. Dreams are the brain's offline efforts to distill projections of the future, while memory represents the vestiges of the past successes and survived failures of those and other conscious projections. Memory thus acts to inform and improve the prediction of possible future states through the use of conscious prospects (planning) and unconscious prospective memory (dreams). When successful, these prospects result in states of flow for conscious planning and déjà vu for its unconscious comparator. In consequence, and contrary to normal expectation, memory is overwhelmingly oriented to deal with the future. Consciousness is the comparable process operating in the present moment. Thus past, present, and future are homeomorphic with the parts of memory (episodic and autobiographical) that recall a personal past, consciousness, and the differing dimensions of prospective memory to plan for future circumstances, respectively. Dreaming (i.e., unconscious prospective memory), has the luxury to run multiple "what if" simulations of many possible futures, essentially offline. I explicate these propositions and their relations to allied constructs such as déjà vu and flow. More generally, I propose that what appear to us as a range of normal psychological experiences are actually manifestations of an ongoing pathological battle for control within the brain. The landscape of this conflict is time. I suggest that there are at least 3 general systems bidding for this control, and in the process of evolution, each system has individually conferred a sequentially increasing survival advantage, but only at the expense of a still incomplete functional integration. Through juxtaposition of these respective brain systems, I endeavor to resolve some fundamental paradoxes and conundrums expressed in the basic psychological and behavioral processes of sleep, consciousness, and memory. The implication of this conceptual framework for the overall conception of time is then briefly adumbrated.
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Familiarity Transfer as an Explanation of the Déjà Vu Effect
M. Małecki1
1 Warsaw, Poland
Psychological Reports 116(3): 955-982, 2015
Epub 2015 Apr 14. doi: 10.2466/19.04.PR0.116k25w1
Summary
Déjà vu is often explained in terms of an unconscious transfer of familiarity between a familiar object or objects and accompanying new objects. However, empirical research tests more the priming effectiveness than such a transfer. This paper reviews the main explanations of déjà vu, proposes a cognitive model of the phenomenon, and tests its six major assumptions. The model states that a sense of familiarity can be felt toward an objectively new stimulus (point 1) and that it can be transferred from a known stimulus to a novel one (point 2) in a situation where the person is unaware of such a transfer (point 3). The criteria for déjà vuare that the known and the novel stimuli may have graphical or semantic similarity, but differences exclude priming explanations (point 4); the familiarity measure should be of an non-rational nature (sense of familiarity rather than recognition; point 5); and that the feeling of familiarity toward a novel stimuli produces a conflict, which could be measured by means of increased reaction (point 6). 119 participants were tested in three experiments. The participants were to assess the novel stimuli in terms of their sense of familiarity. The novel stimuli were primed or were not primed by the known stimulus (Exp. 1) or primed by the known vs a novel stimulus (Exp. 2 and 3). The priming was subliminal in all the experiments. Reaction times were measured in Exps. 2 and 3. The participants assessed the novel stimuli as more familiar when they were preceded by a known stimulus than when they were not (Exp. 1) or when they were preceded by a novel stimulus (Exps. 2 and 3). Reaction times were longer for assessments preceded by known stimulus than for assessments preceded by a novel stimulus, which contradicts the priming explanations. The results seem to support all six points of the proposed model of the mechanisms underlying the déjà vu experience.
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Déjà vécu and déjà visité similarities and differences: Initial results from an online investigation
Funkhouser A & Schredl M
Journal of Consciousness Studies 21(11-12): 7 - 18, 2014
Abstract
It has been posited that the experience commonly called 'deja vu' can be subdivided into several types of deja experience. For the past nine years an internet questionnaire has collected data about what are called 'deja vecu' (already lived through) and 'deja visite' (already visited) experiences. It is clear from the data that deja vecu experiences occur more frequently than do deja visite ones. Further analysis of the data has shown that deja vecu experiences were rated as being significantly longer than those of deja visite. In addition, the mean age of the first experience was lower for deja vecu experiences as compared with deja visite ones. Moreover, positive emotions outweighed negative ones for both experiences while both tended to have sudden onsets. More deja vecu experiences were said to occur in a state of hyper-alertness, tended to be more comprehensive, were remembered in greater detail, and involved precognition more often than occurred in instances of deja visite. It appears one may be justified in considering these as two separate experiences. In the future, it would be desirable to conduct representative studies to obtain information about the frequencies of occurrence of the various types of deja experience in the general population and in-depth analyses regarding their situational context and content.
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The awareness of novelty for strangely familiar words: a laboratory analogue of the déjà vu experience
Urquhart JA1, O’Connor AR1
1 School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, UK
PeerJ 2:e666 (2014) https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.666
Abstract
Déjà vu is a nebulous memory experience defined by a clash between evaluations of familiarity and novelty for the same stimulus. We sought to generate it in the laboratory by pairing a DRM recognition task, which generates erroneous familiarity for critical words, with a monitoring task by which participants realise that some of these erroneously familiar words are in fact novel. We tested 30 participants in an experiment in which we varied both participant awareness of stimulus novelty and erroneous familiarity strength. We found that déjà vu reports were most frequent for high novelty critical words (∼25%), with low novelty critical words yielding only baseline levels of déjà vu report frequency (∼10%). There was no significant variation in déjà vureport frequency according to familiarity strength. Discursive accounts of the experimentally-generated déjà vuexperience suggest that aspects of the naturalistic déjà vu experience were captured by this analogue, but that the analogue was also limited in its focus and prone to influence by demand characteristics. We discuss theoretical and methodological considerations relevant to further development of this procedure and propose that verifiable novelty is an important component of both naturalistic and experimental analogues of déjà vu.
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Déjà vu experiences in healthy subjects are unrelated to laboratory tests of recollection and familiarity for word stimuli.
O'Connor AR1, Moulin CJ2.
1 School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
2 Laboratoire d’Etude de l’Apprentissage et du Développement (CNRS UMR 5022), Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
*Correspondence: Akira R. O’Connor, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary’s College, South Street, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, Scotland, UK e-mail: ku.ca.swerdna-ts a 2ora
Frontiers in Psychology 4: 881, 2013
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00881. eCollection 2013.
Abstract
Recent neuropsychological and neuroscientific research suggests that people who experience more déjà vu display characteristic patterns in normal recognition memory. We conducted a large individual differences study (n = 206) to test these predictions using recollection and familiarity parameters recovered from a standard memory task. Participants reported déjà vu frequency and a number of its correlates, and completed a recognition memory task analogous to a Remember-Know procedure. The individual difference measures replicated an established correlation between déjà vu frequency and frequency of travel, and recognition performance showed well-established word frequency and accuracy effects. Contrary to predictions, no relationships were found between déjà vu frequency and recollection or familiarity memory parameters from the recognition test. We suggest that déjà vu in the healthy population reflects a mismatch between errant memory signaling and memory monitoring processes not easily characterized by standard recognition memory task performance.
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The similarity hypothesis of déjà vu: On the relationship between frequency of real-life déjà vuexperiences and sensitivity to configural resemblance
Sugimoria Ea, Kusumib Tb
a Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, 1-6-1 Nishi Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8050, Japan
b Division of Cognitive Psychology in Education, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
Journal of Cognitive Psychology 26: 48-57, 2013
DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2013.854248
Abstract
Prior research has suggested that configural resemblance between a current scene and a previously experienced but forgotten one may trigger déjà vu experiences. The present study examined whether there is a relationship between the frequency of actual déjà vu experiences, measured by questionnaires, and sensitivity to a configural resemblance between past and present events, measured by questionnaires, and between two scenes presented simultaneously in the laboratory. We measured familiarity ratings and remember – know judgements of several scenes. Some scenes had been previously presented, some were similar to previously presented scenes and the others were dissimilar. Déjà vu tendencies were significantly correlated with sensitivity to similarity in the measured questionnaires and in the laboratory, as well as to a feeling of familiarity for similar scenes. In this study, we found for the first time that people who more frequently experience déjà vu states were also more likely to regard themselves as sensitive to similarity and more likely to notice the similarity between two scenes in the laboratory.
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Schizophrenia and the paranormal: More psi belief and superstition, and less déjà vu in medicated schizophrenic patients
Shiah YJ1, Wu YZ2, Chen YH3, Chiang SK4
1 Graduate Institute of Counseling Psychology and Rehabilitation Counseling, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan. Electronic address: shiah a nknu.edu.tw.
2 Graduate Institute of Psychology, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan.
3 Integrated Brain Research Unit, Division of Clinical Research, Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan; Laboratory of Integrated Brain Research Unit, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
4 Clinical and Counseling Psychology Department, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan.
Comprehensive Psychiatry 55(3): 688-92, 2013
pii: S0010-440X(13)00323-4. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2013.11.003. [Epub ahead of print]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
The present study examined the relation between déjà vu experiences and paranormal beliefs in schizophrenic patients.
METHODS:
A total of 522 participants (54.5% female; mean age=33.3, SD=16.02) were recruited, including 422 healthy adults (60.9% female; mean age=29.48, SD=15.07) and 100 medicated adult schizophrenic patients (27.3% female; mean age=48.98, SD=8.57). The Chinese version of the Inventory of Déjà-vu Experiences Assessment was created via back translation. Chinese versions of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (CRPB), Beck Anxiety Inventory (CBAI), and Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS) were also used.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:
After controlling for age, gender, education, and anxiety, the results supported the following three hypotheses. Schizophrenic persons have fewer déjà vu experiences than normal persons. These experiences are positively related to paranormal beliefs in healthy adults but not in schizophrenic patients. Schizophrenic patients have higher scores than healthy adults on the psi and superstitious subscales of the CRPB.
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EEG characteristics of déjà vu phenomenon
Chervyakov AV1, Gnezditskii VV1, Vlasov PN2, Kalmykova GV3
1 Research Center of Neurology, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia
2 Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, Moscow, Russia
3 Children’s Regional Clinical Hospital, Medical Department of Belgorod State University, Belgorod, Russia
Journal of Epileptology 21, ID 19169, 2013
SUMMARY
Introduction. Déjà vu (DV, from French “already seen”) is an aberration of psychic activity associated with transitory erroneous perception of novel circumstances, objects, or people as already known.
Aim. Investigation of clinical and diagnostic significance of derealization episodes in epilepsy.
Materials and methods. The study involved 166 individuals (mean age 25.2 ± 9.2 yrs; 63.2% women). DVepisodes were characterized and compared in groups of healthy volunteers (n = 139) and epilepsy patients (n = 27). The subjects participated in a survey concerning déjà vu characteristics and in a long-time ambulatory EEG monitoring (12–16 h).
Results. In epilepsy patients, DV episodes were equally frequent in cryptogenic and symptomatic focal epilepsy, occurred in combination with nearly all types of seizures, and could occur both as an aura and as an individual seizure. The major clinical features distinguishing DV in healthy subjects from DV in epilepsy patients were the frequency and emotional perception of DV episodes, and preceding fear. A critical diagnostic marker is the dynamics of DV characteristics: an increase in frequency and duration, negative emotional background. In EEG, DV episodes in patients began with polyspike activity in the right temporal lobe and, in some cases, ended with slow-wave theta-delta activity in the right hemisphere.
Conclusion. Our combined clinical and electrophysiological investigation identified two separate DV types: epileptic Déjà Vu characteristic of epilepsy patients and equivalent to an epileptic seizure, and non-epileptic Déjà Vu occurring in healthy individuals, which is basically a psychological phenomenon.
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[Electroencephalographic characteristics of the deja vu phenomenon]
[Article in Russian]
Vlasov PN, Cherviakov AV, Gnezdinsiĭ VV
Zhurnal nevrologii i psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova 113(4, Pt 2): 3-9, 2013
Abstract
Déjà vu (DV, from French "already seen") is an aberration of psychic activity associated with transitory erroneous perception of novel circumstances, objects, or people as already known. An aim of the study was to investigate EEG characteristics of DV in patients with epilepsy. We studied 166 people (63.2% women, mean age 25.17±9.19 years). The DV phenomenon was studied in patients (27 people) and in a control group (139 healthy people). Patients were interviewed for DV characteristics and underwent a long (12-16 h) ambulatory EEG-monitoring study. In EEG, DV episodes in patients began with polyspike activity in the right temporal lobe and, in some cases, ended with the slow-wave theta-delta activity in the right hemisphere.
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Déjà vu experiences in healthy subjects are unrelated to laboratory tests of recollection and familiarity for word stimuli
O'Connor AR1, Moulin CJ2
1 School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews St Andrews, UK
2 Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement (CNRS UMR 5022), Université de Bourgogne Dijon, France
Frontiers in Psychology 4: 881, 2013
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00881
Abstract
Recent neuropsychological and neuroscientific research suggests that people who experience more déjà vudisplay characteristic patterns in normal recognition memory. We conducted a large individual differences study (n = 206) to test these predictions using recollection and familiarity parameters recovered from a standard memory task. Participants reported déjà vu frequency and a number of its correlates, and completed a recognition memory task analogous to a Remember-Know procedure. The individual difference measures replicated an established correlation between déjà vu frequency and frequency of travel, and recognition performance showed well-established word frequency and accuracy effects. Contrary to predictions, no relationships were found between déjà vu frequency and recollection or familiarity memory parameters from the recognition test. We suggest that déjà vu in the healthy population reflects a mismatch between errant memory signaling and memory monitoring processes not easily characterized by standard recognition memory task performance.
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Unveiling the mystery of déjà vu: the structural anatomy of déjà vu
Brázdil M, Marecek R, Urbánek T, Kašpárek T, Mikl M, Rektor I, Zeman A
Behavioral and Social Neuroscience Research Group, CEITEC-Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic E-mail: mbrazd a med.muni.cz
Cortex 48(9): 1240-3, 2012
Abstract
Déjà vu (DV) is a widespread, fascinating and mysterious human experience. It occurs both in health and in disease, notably as an aura of temporal lobe epilepsy. This feeling of inappropriate familiarity has attracted interest from psychologists and neuroscientists for over a century, but still there is no widely agreed explanation for the phenomenon of non-pathological DV. Here we investigated differences in brain morphology between healthy subjects with and without DV using a novel multivariate neuroimaging technique, Source-Based Morphometry. The analysis revealed a set of cortical (predominantly mesiotemporal) and subcortical regions in which there was significantly less gray matter in subjects reporting DV. In these regions gray matter volume was inversely correlated with the frequency of DV. Our results demonstrate a structural correlate of DV in healthy individuals for the first time and support a neurological explanation for the phenomenon. We hypothesis that the observed local gray matter decrease in subjects experiencing DVreflects an alteration of hippocampal function and postnatal neurogenesis with resulting changes of volume in remote brain regions.
(see comment by Labate and Gambardella: Cortex 49:1162, 2013)
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Familiarity from the configuration of objects in 3-dimensional space and its relation to déjà vu: a virtual reality investigation
Cleary AM, Brown AS, Sawyer BD, Nomi JS, Ajoku AC, Ryals AJ
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA E-mail: Anne.Cleary a colostate.edu
Consciousness and Cognition 21(2): 969-75, 2012
Abstract
Déjà vu is the striking sense that the present situation feels familiar, alongside the realization that it has to be new. According to the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis, déjà vu results when the configuration of elements within a scene maps onto a configuration previously seen, but the previous scene fails to come to mind. We examined this using virtual reality (VR) technology. When a new immersive VR scene resembled a previously-viewed scene in its configuration but people failed to recall the previously-viewed scene, familiarity ratings and reports of déjà vu were indeed higher than for completely novel scenes. People also exhibited the contrasting sense of newness and of familiarity that is characteristic of déjà vu. Familiarity ratings and déjà vu reports among scenes recognized as new increased with increasing feature-match of a scene to one stored in memory, suggesting that feature-matching can produce familiarity and déjà vu when recall fails.
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An approach to nineteenth-century medical lexicon: the term "dreamy state"
Lardreau E
University of Paris-Diderot, Paris, France E-mail: esthercotelle a wanadoo.fr
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 20(1): 34-41, 2011
Abstract
Hughlings-Jackson coined the concept of dreamy state: According to him, one of the sensations of a "dreamy state" was an odd feeling of recognition and familiarity, often called "deja vu". A clear sense of strangeness could also be experienced in the "dreamy state" ("jamais vu"). Jackson himself did not use these French terms, but he was quite clear about the vivid feelings of strangeness and familiarity, which can occur in both normal and pathological conditions. In order to explore some of the exchanges between medical and nonmedical vocabularies, we examine the historical origins of this technical concept. By basing the study on European (medical and nonmedical) literature of the nineteenth century, we review the first descriptions of this state and compare them with the famous Hughlings-Jackson definitions. It appears that this medical concept was partly borrowed from a wide cultural background before being rationally developed and reworked in the fields of neurology and psychiatry.
Comment in The “dreamy state” in the work of John Hughlings Jackson. [Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 2011]
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The frequency of déjà vu (déjà rêve) and the effects of age, dream recall frequency and personality factors
Funkhouser AT, Schredl, M
International Journal of Dream Research 3(1): 60-64
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/ijodr.2010.1.473
Abstract
A question about déjà rêve (already dreamt, a form of déjà experience) was included in a large "sleep, dreams, and personality" survey of 444 (mainly psychology) students at three German universities. The incidence of déjà rêve was high (95.2%) and, like most other déjà experiences, was negatively correlated with age. In addition to dream recall frequency, the most influential personality dimensions were thin boundaries and absorption. Additional research should use diary measures and experimental approaches in addition to the trait and dream variables.
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Recognition without identification, erroneous familiarity, and déjà vu
O'Connor AR, Moulin CJ
Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. E-mail: aoconnor a wustl.edu
Current Psychiatry Reports 12(3): 165-73, 2010
Abstract
Déjà vu is characterized by the recognition of a situation concurrent with the awareness that this recognition is inappropriate. Although forms of déjà vu resolve in favor of the inappropriate recognition and therefore have behavioral consequences, typical déjà vu experiences resolve in favor of the awareness that the sensation of recognition is inappropriate. The resultant lack of behavioral modification associated with typical déjà vumeans that clinicians and experimenters rely heavily on self-report when observing the experience. In this review, we focus on recent déjà vu research. We consider issues facing neuropsychological, neuroscientific, and cognitive experimental frameworks attempting to explore and experimentally generate the experience. In doing this, we suggest the need for more experimentation and a more cautious interpretation of research findings, particularly as many techniques being used to explore déjà vu are in the early stages of development.
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Novel insights into false recollection: A model of déjà vécu
O'Connor AR [a], Lever C [b], Moulin CJA [c]
a Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
b Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
c Leeds Memory Group, Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 15(1-3): 118-144, 2010
Abstract
The thesis of this paper is that déjà vu experiences can be separated into two forms: déjà vu, arising from the erroneous sensation of familiarity, and déjà vécu, arising from the erroneous sensation of recollection. We summarise a series of cases for whom déjà vécu is experienced frequently and for extended periods, and seek to differentiate their experiences from “healthy” déjà vu experiences by nonbrain-damaged participants. In reviewing our cases, we stress two novel ideas: that déjà vécu in these cases is delusion-like; and that these cases experience déjà vécu for stimuli that are especially novel or unusual. Here we present a novel cognitive neuroscientific hypothesis of déjà vécu. This hypothesis assumes that the signal of retrieval from memory is neurally dissociable from the contents of retrieval. We suggest that a region downstream of the hippocampus signals “recollection” by detecting the timing of firing in hippocampal output neurons relative to the theta oscillation. Disruptions to this “temporal coding” mechanism result in false signals of recollection which may occur without actual retrieval and which, ironically, may arise particularly during situations of contextual novelty.
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Chapter 2 - Digging into déjà vu: Recent research on possible mechanisms
Brown AS, Marsh EJ
Psychology of Learning and Motivation 53: 33-62, 2010
Abstract
The déjà vu experience has piqued the interest of philosophers and physicians for over 150 years, and has recently begun to connect to research on fundamental cognitive mechanisms. Following a brief description of the nature of this recognition anomaly, this chapter summarizes findings from several laboratories that are related to this memory phenomenon. In our labs, we have found support for three possible mechanisms that could trigger déjà vu. The first is split perception, which posits that a déjà vu is caused by a brief glance at an object or scene just prior to a fully aware look. Thus, the perception is split into two parts and appears to be eerily duplicated. A second mechanism is implicit memory, whereby a prior setting actually has been experienced before by the person but stored in such an indistinct manner that only the sense of familiarity is resurrected. Another example of an implicit memory effect involves a single part of a larger scene that is familiar but not identified as such, with the result that the strong sense of familiarity associated with this portion inappropriately bleeds over onto the entire scene. Others have found support for gestalt familiarity, that the framework of the present setting closely resembles something experienced before in outline but not in specifics. We also present physiological evidence from brain and cognitive dysfunctions that relate to our understanding of déjà vu. Finally, some important but unresolved issues in déjà vu research are noted, ones that should guide future research on the topic.
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Using a change-detection task to simulate divided perception and its effects on recognition memory for objects
Kostic B
Doctoral thesis, Colorado State University, 2010
http://search.proquest.com/docview/750992765?accountid=14616
Abstract
Déjà vu is defined as high levels of familiarity for objects or situations that are objectively unfamiliar. One theory of déjà vu is that objects viewed under conditions of divided perception can later evoke familiarity. The present study examined whether a change detection task could simulate divided perception and affect later recognition memory performance for changed items. Participants viewed a study list in which one version of a scene alternated once with another version of the same scene, but with one item missing. Participants attempted to determine the location of the change. On a subsequent test list, participants viewed items from the scenes in isolation and made recognition judgments on them. Across five experiments, this task was used to determine how detection status affected familiarity ratings, how stimulus characteristics affect familiarity ratings, and what recognition processes (i.e., recollection and familiarity) drive recognition decisions for undetected items. Overall, these experiments show that simulated conditions of divided perception do affect recognition memory, which is a first step towards investigating déjà vu directly.
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Can deja vu result from similarity to a prior experience? Support for the similarity hypothesis of deja vu?
Cleary AM, Ryals AJ, Nomi JS.
Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1876, USA. E-mail: anne.cleary a colostate.edu
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16(6): 1082-8, 2009
Abstract
The strange feeling of having been somewhere or done something before--even though there is evidence to the contrary--is called déjà vu. Although déjà vu is beginning to receive attention among scientists (Brown, 2003, 2004), few studies have empirically investigated the phenomenon. We investigated the hypothesis that déjà vu is related to feelings of familiarity and that it can result from similarity between a novel scene and that of a scene experienced in one's past. We used a variation of the recognition-without-recall method of studying familiarity (Cleary, 2004) to examine instances in which participants failed to recall a studied scene in response to a configurally similar novel test scene. In such instances, resemblance to a previously viewed scene increased both feelings of familiarity and of déjà vu. Furthermore, in the absence of recall, resemblance of a novel scene to a previously viewed scene increased the probability of a reported déjà vu state for the novel scene, and feelings of familiarity with a novel scene were directly related to feelings of being in a déjà vustate.
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Creating illusions of past encounter through brief exposure
Brown AS, Marsh EJ.
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA. E-mail: abrown a smu.edu
Psychological Science 20(5): 534-8, 2009
Abstract
Titchener (1928) suggested that briefly glancing at a scene could make it appear strangely familiar when it was fully processed moments later. The closest laboratory demonstration used words as stimuli, and showed that briefly glancing at a to-be-judged word increased the subject's belief that it had been presented in an earlier study list (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989). We evaluated whether a hasty glance could elicit a false belief in a prior encounter, from a time and place outside of the experiment. This goal precluded using word stimuli, so we had subjects evaluate unfamiliar symbols. Each symbol was preceded by a brief exposure to an identical symbol, a different symbol, or no symbol. A brief glance at an identical symbol increased attributions to preexperimental experience, relative to a glance at a different symbol or no symbol, providing a possible mechanism for common illusions of false recognition.
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Neuroimaging and cognitive changes during déjà vu
Kovacs N [a], Auer T [a, b, c, d], Balas I [b], Karadi K [a, e], Zambo K [f], Schwarcz A [b, d], Klivenyi P [g], Jokeit H [h], Horvath K [a], Nagy F [a], Janszky J [a, d]
a Department of Neurology, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary E-mail: kovacsnorbert06 a gmail.com
b Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary
c Biomedizinische NMR Forschungs GmbH am Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen, Germany
d Pécs Diagnostic Institute, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary
e Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary
f Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary
g Department of Neurology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
h Swiss Epilepsy Center, Zurich, Switzerland
Epilepsy & Behavior 14(1): 190-6, 2009
Epub 2008 Oct 5
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The cause or the physiological role of déjà vu (DV) in healthy people is unknown. The pathophysiology of DV-type epileptic aura is also unresolved. Here we describe a 22-year-old woman treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the left internal globus pallidus for hemidystonia. At certain stimulation settings, DBS elicited reproducible episodes of DV.
METHODS: Neuropsychological tests and single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) were performed during DBS-evoked DV and during normal DBS stimulation without DV.
RESULTS: SPECT during DBS-evoked DV revealed hyperperfusion of the right (contralateral to the electrode) hippocampus and other limbic structures. Neuropsychological examinations performed during several evoked DV episodes revealed disturbances in nonverbal memory.
CONCLUSION: Our results confirm the role of mesiotemporal structures in the pathogenesis of DV. We hypothesize that individual neuroanatomy and disturbances in gamma oscillations or in the dopaminergic system played a role in DBS-elicited DV in our patient.
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Scene recognition without identification
Cleary AM[a], Reyes NL[b]
a Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, 1876 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1876, United States
b Psychology Department, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, P.O. Box 7150, Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150, USA
Acta Psychologica 131(1): 53–62, 2009
Abstract
Recognition without identification (RWI) is old-new discrimination among recognition test items that go unidentified. Recently, the effect has been shown in situations that require pre-experimental connections between unidentified studied items and their test cues, such as when the test cues are general knowledge questions and the unidentified studied items are their answers, or when the test cues are pictures of celebrities and the unidentified studied items are their names. In these cases, RWI demonstrates a peculiar relationship with tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences: Participants give higher recognition ratings when in a TOT state than when not, even though studying an item does not increase the probability of a TOT state for that item. The present study extends these findings to the recognition of scene information. We demonstrate a scene RWI effect with scenes when scene names cannot be retrieved, and replicate the previously reported relationship between TOT states and RWI. In addition, we show that the relationship between RWI and reported TOT states also occurs between RWI and reported déjà vu states with the test scenes.
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Evoking false beliefs about autobiographical experience
Brown AS1, Marsh EJ2
1. Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas
2. Duke University, Durham
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 15(1): 186–190, 2008
Abstract
In two experiments, we demonstrate that laboratory procedures can evoke false beliefs about autobiographical experience. After shallowly processing photographs of real-world locations, participants returned 1 week (Experiments 1 and 2) or 3 weeks (Experiment 2) later to evaluate whether they had actually visited each of a series of new and old pictured locations. Mundane and unique scenes from an unfamiliar college campus (Duke or SMU) were shown zero, one, or two times in the first session. Prior exposure increased participants’ beliefs that they had visited locations that they had never actually visited. Furthermore, participants gave higher visit ratings to mundane than to unique scenes, and this did not vary with exposure frequency or delay. This laboratory procedure for inducing autobiographical false beliefs may have implications for better understanding various illusions of recognition.
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Recognition memory, familiarity, and déjà vu experiences
Cleary AM
Address correspondence to Anne M. Cleary, Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1876; E-mail: anne.cleary a colostate.edu
Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(5): 353 - 357, 2008
Published Online: 15 Oct
Abstract
Déjà vu occurs when one feels as though a situation is familiar, despite evidence that the situation could not have been experienced before. Until recently, the topic of déjà vu remained largely outside of the realm of mainstream scientific investigation. However, interest in investigating the nature of déjà vu is growing among researchers of cognitive processes. In some cases, déjà vu may be understood within the context of research on human recognition memory. Specifically, déjà vu may sometimes result from familiarity-based recognition, or recognition that is based on feelings of familiarity that occur without identification of their source.
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Déjà vu in the laboratory: a behavioral and experiential comparison of posthypnotic amnesia and posthypnotic familiarity
O'Connor AR, Barnier AJ, Cox RE
University of Leeds, United Kingdom E-mail: aoconnor a wustl.edu
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 56(4): 425-50, 2008
Abstract
This experiment aimed to create a laboratory analogue of déjà vu. During hypnosis, 1 group of high hypnotizables completed a puzzle game and then received a posthypnotic amnesia suggestion to forget the game (PHA condition). Another group of highs were not given the game but received a posthypnotic familiarity suggestion that it would feel familiar (PHF condition). After hypnosis, all participants were given the game and described their reactions to it. Whereas 83% of participants in both conditions passed their respective suggestions, more in the PHF condition felt a sense of déjà vu. An EAT inquiry revealed that they experienced sensory fascination and confusion about the source of familiarity, akin to everyday déjà vu. These findings highlight the value of using hypnosis as a laboratory analogue of déjà vu and provide a framework for investigating clinical manifestations of this phenomenon.
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States of awareness and recognition: insights from deja vu
O'Connor AR
Doctoral thesis: University of Leeds, 2007
Abstract
Recognition occurs with the awareness that a perceived stimulus has been perceived before. This awareness is typically an accurate representation of true recognition, but it can occasionally be misleading. This thesis explores deja vu from the viewpoint that it is an error of recognition memory. The experience of deja vu is characterised by the juxtaposition of two conscious states of awareness, objective unfamiliarity and subjective familiarity (Brown, 2004). This dissociation was used as the theoretical basis for the investigation of the deja vu experience. Three approaches were taken: the investigation of individual differences in measures of memory associated with deja vu; the development of experimental analogues of the experience; and the study of three cases with unusual presentations of the experience. In the investigation of individual differences associated with deja vu occurrence (Experiment 1), it was anticipated that people reporting a high frequency of deja vu occurrence would display a pattern of recollective experience paradigm recognition characterised by familiarity (F) for false positives. Although no difference in F was found when high and low deja vusubgroups were compared, a positive correlation between F and deja vu occurrence was found in all participants. Three experimental analogues of deja vu were then developed (Experiments 2, 3, 4, & 5) using posthypnotic amnesia (PHA), posthypnotic familiarity (PHF), and the mere exposure paradigm (Experiment 6). Differences in quantitative measures of memory were not found to be associated with participants who reported deja vu as a result of the procedures, or with individual stimuli eliciting the sensation. Additionally, participants experienced deja vu for both experimental and distracter stimuli, suggesting that deja vu may be experienced as an overarching cognitive feeling rather than a state of memory associated with individual stimuli. In phenomenological analyses of participants' experiences of the analogues,the PHF procedure was most likely to elicit spontaneous comparison with deja vu. Finally, the three cases reported deja vu in a blind man, deja vu in a man with epilepsy and a manifestation of deja vu characterised by recoliection and behavioural change (deja vecu) in an elderly man (Chapter 6). The experiments and cases in this thesis produced results which were consistent with Brown's definition of deja vu. It is a subjective experience of familiarity juxtaposed with an objective unfamiliarity. In addition, this thesis produced novel findings which indicate that deja vu is a top-down memory error, and a novel theoretical framework is used to asses deja vu, specifically the involvement of an overarching metacognitive correction process (Koriat, 2006). The experiments also raised questions as to the dissociation characterising the deja vu experience, the formation and perpetuation of the experience, and the role played by additional factors such as ' stimulus novelty and the metacognitive correction process involved in the experience. Deja vu is a memory failure typified by a sensation of familiarity corrected in favour of an objective assessment of novelty. The mechanisms of deja vuhave been elucidated by the use of standard memory paradigms, such as recollective experience (Tulving, 1985).
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Human metacognition and the déjà vu phenomenon
Kusumi T
Chapter 14 in: Diversity of Cognition: Evolution, Domestication, and Pathology. K. Fujita & S. Itakura (eds.) Kyoto University Press; Kyoto, 2006, pp. 302-314
(He provides a useful survey of what percentages of déjà vu experiences are concerned with what sorts of situations and places. pp. 307-8)
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Normal patterns of déjà experience in a healthy, blind male: challenging optical pathway delay theory
O'Connor AR, Moulin CJ
Leeds Memory Group, Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. E-mail: a.r.o'connor a leeds.ac.uk
Brain and Cognition 62(3): 246-9, 2006. Epub 2006 Aug 4.
Abstract
We report the case of a 25-year-old healthy, blind male, MT, who experiences normal patterns of déjà vu. The optical pathway delay theory of déjà vu formation assumes that neuronal input from the optical pathways is necessary for the formation of the experience. Surprisingly, although the sensation of déjà vu is known to be experienced by blind individuals, we believe this to be the first reported application of this knowledge to the understanding of the phenomenon. Visual input is not present in MT, yet the experiences he describes are consistent with reports in the literature of déjà vu occurrence in sighted people. The fact that blind people can experience déjà vu challenges the optical pathway delay theory, and alternative causes are briefly discussed.
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The Déjà Vu Illusion
Brown AS
Department of Psychology, Dedman College, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275; E-mail: abrown a smu.edu.
Current Directions in Psychological Science 13(6): 256-9, 2004
Abstract
The déjà vu illusion occurs when a person has an inappropriate feeling of familiarity in a situation that is objectively unfamiliar or new. The amorphous nature of this experience has made identifying its etiology challenging, but recent advances in neurology and understanding of implicit memory and attention are helping to clarify this cognitive illusion. More specifically, déjà vu may result from (a) a brief change in normal neural transmission speed causing a slightly longer separation between identical messages received from two separate pathways, (b) a brief split in a continuous perceptual experience that is caused by distractions (external or internal) and gives the impression of two separate perceptual events, and (c) the activation of implicit familiarity for some portion (or all) of the present experience without an accompanying conscious recollection of the prior encounter. Procedures that involve degraded or occluded stimulus presentation, divided attention, subliminal mere exposure, and hypnosis may prove especially useful in elucidating this enigmatic cognitive illusion.
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A review of the déjà vu experience
Brown AS
Department of Psychology, Dedman College, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA. E-mail: abrown a mail.smu.edu
Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 394-413, 2003
Abstract
For more than a century, the déjà vu experience has been examined through retrospective surveys, prospective surveys, and case studies. About 60% of the population has experienced déjà vu, and its frequency decreases with age. Déjà vu appears to be associated with stress and fatigue, and it shows a positive relationship with socioeconomic level and education. Scientific explanations of déjà vu fall into 4 categories: dual processing (2 cognitive processes momentarily out of synchrony), neurological (seizure, disruption in neuronal transmission), memory (implicit familiarity of unrecognized stimuli),and attentional (unattended perception followed by attended perception). Systematic research is needed on the prevalence and etiology of this culturally familiar cognitive experience, and several laboratory models may help clarify this illusion of recognition.
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What exactly is déjà vu?
Lampinen JM
Scientific American 287(3): 103, 2002
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-exactly-is-dj-vu/
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[Dreams and interhemispheric asymmetry]
[Article in Russian]
Korabel'nikova EA, Golubev VL
Zhurnal nevrologii i psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova 101(12): 51-4, 2001
Abstract
The dreams of 103 children and adolescents, aged 10-17 years, have been studied. The test group included 78 patients with neurotic disorders; control one consisted of 25 healthy subjects. Dream features, which were common for those with preferentially left asymmetry profile both in patients as well as in healthy subjects, were: less expressed novelty factor and frequent appearance of rare phenomena, such as "déjà vu in wakefulness", reality, "mixed" (overlapped) dreams, prolonged dreams in repeat sleep, frequent changes of personages and scenes of action. Left-hander dream peculiarities, being detected only in neurotic patients but not in healthy subjects, emerged as lucid phenomena deficit, "dream in dreams" and "dream reminiscence in dream" syndrome, which have been found only in left-handers. Right and left hemispheres seem to contribute in different ways to a dream formation. In authors believe that the left hemisphere seems to provide dream origin while the right hemisphere provides dream vividness, figurativeness and affective activation level.
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Intense and recurrent déjà vu experiences related to amantadine and phenylpropanolamine in a healthy male
Taiminena Ta, Jääskeläinen SKb
a Department of Psychiatry, Turku University Central Hospital, Turku, Finland
b Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Turku University Central Hospital, Turku, Finland
Journal of Clinical Neuroscience 8(5): 460-2, 2001
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967586800908105
Abstract
We report a case of a 39-year-old caucasian healthy male physician who developed intense and recurrent déjà vu experiences within 24h of initiating concomitant amantadine–phenylpropanolamine treatment against influenza. Déjà vu experiences terminated on discontinuation of medication. Findings in temporal epilepsy suggest that mesial temporal structures, including hippocampus, are related to paramnesic symptoms. On the other hand, previous case reports have confirmed that both amantadine and phenylpropanolamine alone, and particularly in combination, can induce psychotic symptoms due to their dopaminergic activity. The authors suggest that déjà vu experiences may be provoked by increased dopamine activity in mesial temporal structures of the brain.
Correspondence to: Tero Taiminen MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Rak. 9, III krs., Kunnallissairaalantie 20, FIN-20700 Turku, Finland. Tel.: +358 2 2692577; Fax: +358 2 2692528; E-mail: tero.taiminen a utu.fi
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Expression of one group of genes maintains one unit of long-term memory in a brain model
Wong CW
Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. E-mail: c1951 a netvigator.com
Medical Hypotheses 55(2): 99-102, 2000
Abstract
In a brain model, a unit of long-term memory is stored in the encoding synapses of a neuron as a presynaptic axonal 'on-off' pattern through the establishment of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD). Repetitive activation of one presynaptic axonal 'on-off' pattern speeds up the subsequent re-activation of the same pattern by inducing expression of a corresponding group of genes in support of the enzymes, protein substrates, and second messengers for the LTP and LTD that encode the unit of long-term memory. Phantom limb pains are memorized and re-activated through the expression of the corresponding group of genes, and re-experiencing the stressful event in post traumatic stress syndrome results from the expression of another group of genes. The sense of requiring less time to experience the content of a successfully retrieved long-term memory reflects an increased speed of re-activating the presynaptic axonal 'on-off' patterns of the memory, or an increased speed of thinking. Giving rise to a sense of familiarity with new things,déjà vu may also be a mental state with increased speed of thinking. The speed of thinking may be decreased in jamais vu that is opposite to déjà vu. Progressive increases in the speed of thinking when engaging in a hobby may open up a previously unused neural pathway that turns a previously happy feeling into an aversive one.
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The alter ego and déjà vu phenomena: Notes and reflections
Grotstein JS
In: The Plural Self: Multiplicity in Everyday Life, Rowan, John & Cooper, Mick (eds). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd, 1999, pp. 28-50
Abstract
The author looks at the development of self-plurality in the early stages of an individual's life: specifically the acquisition of an eerie, uncanny sense of having a 'second self'—a stranger, phantom, demon, doppelgänger or 'rogue subject'—within. Grotstein terms this the 'alter ego phenomenon': a mysterious double which surfaces in the denizens of our dreams, in imaginary friends, in therapeutic transference, in the phenomenon of déjà vu, and in literary works. Grotstein describes the development of these second selves primarily in psychoanalytical terms, but argues that they are more than just internal 'objects.' Rather, as the internalization of an externality onto which the subject has projected his own subjectivity, he suggests that they are internal 'subjects': with an autonomy, volition and sense of 'I-ness' of their own; and with the potential to hound the projecting subject and 'demand repatriation.'
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A model-based theory for déjà vu and related psychological phenomena
Findler NV
Corresponding author contact information: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5406 USA
Computers in Human Behavior 14(2): 287–301, 1998
Abstract
An explanatory mechanism is discussed that leads to a so-called sufficiency theory of certain psychological phenomena, such as standard recognition as opposed to déjà vu, imagined novel experience, jamais vu, disturbed recognition, incorrect recognition, and hallucination — experiences that have not been explained before in a satisfactory scientific manner. Sufficiency theory, in general, means that a proposed structure of plausible mechanisms is sufficient but may not be uniquely necessary to explain, understand, and predict the behavior of the phenomenon under study.
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Role of memory strength in reality monitoring decisions: Evidence from source attribution biases
Hoffman HG
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 23(2): 371-83, 1997
Abstract
Reality monitoring of verbal memories was compared with decisions about pictorial memories in this study. Experiment 1 showed an advantage in memory for imagined over perceived words and a bias to respond "perceived" on false alarms. Experiment 2 showed the opposite pattern: an advantage in memory for perceived pictures and a bias to respond "imagined" on false alarms. Participants attribute false alarms to whichever class of memories has the weakest trace strengths. The relative strength of memories of imagined and perceived objects was manipulated in Experiments 3 and 4, yielding changes in source attribution biases that were predicted by the strength heuristic. All 4 experiments generalize the mirror effect (an inverse relationship between patterns of hits and false alarms commonly found on recognition tests) to reality monitoring decisions. Results suggest that under some conditions differences between the strength of memories for perceived and imagined events, rather than differences in qualitative characteristics, are used to infer memory source.
(Paramnesia and déjà vu mentioned on page 371.)
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Il fenomeno "déjà vu" tra psicopatologia ed opera letteraria
[The phenomenon of deja vu in psychopathology and literature] [in Italian]
Farina B, Verrienti D
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Istituto di Psichiatria e Psicologia, Roma
Minerva Psichiatrica 37(2): 99-106, 1996
Abstract
In this paper we attempted to review the concept of déjà vu. Déjà vu is a common experience in life and it is largely described in psychopathology and in artistic literature. Starting descriptions of writers like Camus, D'Annunzio, Simeon, Bunuel, Schnitzler, Dickens we propose a first phenomenological way of reading of déjà vu experience referring to the different hypotheses in psychopathology: a memory disorder, perception disorder, attentional disorder, considering the phenomenon as a consciousness disorder according to Ey's theories. Secondly we attempted to compare the consciousness disorder hypothesis to a psychoanalytic reading according Freud and Matte Blanco studies.
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Memory illusions
Roediger HL
Journal of Memory and Language 35: 76-100, 1996
"Two of the most famous illusions of memory—déjà vu and jamais vu—are illusions of metacognition. In the former case, which we have considered, people suffer the strange
feeling that a new situation is very familiar ..." p. 95
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Childhood antecedents of out-of-body and déjà vu experiences
Irwin HJ
Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 90: 157-173, 1996
Abstract
A questionnaire survey of Australian university students addressed potential childhood antecedents of the out-of-body experience and déjà-type experiences. Prevalence of several different forms of childhood trauma were found to discriminate out-of-body experients from nonexperients. Proneness to déjà-type experienceswas not related to parental encouragement of imaginative involvement during childhood and was predicted by only one of the childhood traumas surveyed in the study. The findings are discussed with particular reference to studies of dissociative experiences.
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Déjà vu in France during the 19th century: a conceptual history
Berrios GE
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK
Comprehensive Psychiatry 36(2): 123-9, 1995
Abstract
The feeling of déjà vu features as prominently in the creative as in the clinical literature. However, its meaning and mechanisms remain unclear, and it is posited here that this has partially resulted from the way in which this symptom was originally conceptualized. During the late 19th century, medical opinion seemed agreed that déjà vu was a disorder of memory (a paramnesia). However, its study was obfuscated by an overemphasis on its secondary features (e.g., "feeling of conviction," "fleetingness") and by "parapsychological" interpretations. Around the turn of the century, the problem was compounded by the development of narrow models of memory (inspired by association psychology) that left no room for the descriptive complexities of déjà vu. Consequently, it soon became (and has remained) a "symptom without a psychological function." French psychological writers played a crucial role in the conceptualization of déjà vu and this report presents a detailed history of their contribution.
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Three types of déjà vu
Funkhouser AT
Science and Medical Network Journal 57: 20-2, 1995
(The author argues that the term "déjà vu" has been used to include a wide range of different experiences and that it would serve scientific inquiry and research to have a more precise and differentiated nomenclature. He recommends that we begin to use déjà vécu [already experienced or lived through] for instances in which life situations seem strangely familiar, déjà visité [already visited] for instances in which locations or places seem uncannily familiar, and déjà senti [already felt] for instances in which a feeling or emotional state suddenly feels strange yet familiar.)
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Déjà vu experiences and reduplicative paramnesia
Sno HN, Linszen DH, de Jonghe F
Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
British Journal of Psychiatry 161: 565-8, 1992
Abstract
A schizophrenic patient with different forms of experiences of inappropriate familiarity is described. The authors discuss traumatic experiences as aetiological factors in déjà vu experiences and reduplicative paramnesia. Finally, the differential diagnostic problem in psychotic and dissociative phenomena is stressed.
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Empirical research on déjà vu experiences: a review
Sno HN, Schalken HFA, de Jonghe F
University Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Neuroscience and Behavioural Neuroscience 5(3): 155-160, 1992
Abstract
A déjà vu experience is a dissociative phenomenon, which can be characterized as a subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of the present with an undefined past. This paper reviews empirical studies on déjà vu experiences and summarizes the most salient findings. Overall, the findings appear to be inconsistent and inconclusive. The authors conclude that the available empirical research is of limited significance due to various methodological and conceptual issues. In order to evaluate the clinical psychiatric relevance of déjà vu experiences, further research which also addresses its qualitative features is warranted.
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False recognition and perception without awareness
Joordens S, Merikle PM
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Memory & Cognition 20(2): 151-159, 1992
Jacoby and Whitehouse (1989) demonstrated that the probability of calling new test words "old" (i.e., false recognition) is biased by context words. When context words were briefly exposed and subjects were not informed of their presence, new words were called "old" more often if the context and test words were identical than if the context and test words were different. When the context words were presented at longer exposure durations and subjects were informed of their presence, the opposite pattern of results occurred. In Experiment 1, we replicated the critical qualitative difference across conditions reported by Jacoby and Whitehouse. In addition, the combined results of Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that the exposure duration of the context words, and not the instructions to the subjects, is the primary factor determining which pattern of false recognition occurs. However, in contrast with the findings of Jacoby and Whitehouse, both patterns of false recognition were associated with significant recognition memory for the context words. The latter finding presents problems for any interpretation of false recognition, which implies that the briefly exposed context words are perceived without awareness.
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[Depersonalization and déjà vu experiences: prevalences in nonclinical samples]
[Article in German]
Probst P, Jansen J
Psychologisches Institut II, Universität Hamburg
Zeitschrift für klinische Psychologie, Psychopathologie und Psychotherapie 39(4): 357-68, 1991
Abstract
According to the relevant psychological and psychiatric literature, depersonalization and déjà vu experiences are usually viewed as symptoms of severe psychiatric or neurological disorders, especially in schizophrenia, depression and epilepsy. Studies of these phenomena in non-clinical populations are rate. In this article we present the results of several epidemiological investigations. On the basis of survey and interview research, quantitative and qualitative aspects of both phenomena were assessed, as well as the relations with personality variables like emotionality. The results indicate prevalence rates up to 80 percent in non-clinical populations. Based on epidemiological considerations, the question of differentiation between clinical and non-clinical forms of depersonalization and déjà vu is discussed.
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The déjà vu experience: remembrance of things past?
Sno HN, Linszen DH
University Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
American Journal of Psychiatry 47(12): 1587-95, 1990
Abstract
The déjà vu experience is a common phenomenon, occurring in pathological as well as nonpathological conditions. It has been defined as any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined past. The authors discuss the epidemiologic data, clinical features, and etiology of the phenomenon of déjà vu. They also review the different hypotheses on the psychopathogenesis of the déjà vu experience and introduce an explanation based on the hologram as a mnestic model.
Comments:
Kafka JS: Deja vu and synesthesia, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (7): 951c-952, 1991
Kohn SR: Déjà Vu Phenomena, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1417a-1418, 1991
Pagliaro L: Déjà Vu Phenomena, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1418, 1991
Rosen DH: Déjà Vu Phenomena, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1418, 1991
Fleminger S: Déjà Vu Phenomena, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1418b-1419, 1991
Sno HN & Linszen DH Reply, American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1419, 1991
Meurs EJA & Hes R: Déjà Vu and Holographic Images, American Journal of Psychiatry 150 (4): 679a-680, 1993
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Dissociative disorders (hysterical neuroses, dissociative type)
Kaplan HI, Sadock BJ
In: Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry Vol 1, 5th edition, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1989
("Frequently, clinical investigators have included déjà vu and related phenomena in the same category as depersonalization. There is no question that those various kinds of experience are in some way related, because in all of them individuals observe a change in their sense of the reality of what they are perceiving. There is, however, an important difference: in déjà vu what is, in fact, new, alien, and previously unexperienced is felt as being familiar and as having been perceived before. In contrast, in depersonalization what is actually familiar is sensed as strange, novel, and unreal. The one, in other words, is the obverse of the other, and the two phenomena are therefore better considered as distinct entities." p. 1039)
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The dissociative disorders interview schedule: A structured interview
Ross CA, Heber S, Norton GR, Anderson D, Anderson G, Barchet P
Dissociation 11(3): 169-189, 1989
Abstract
The Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DI)18), a structured interview, has been developed to make DSM-111 diagnoses of the dissociative disorders, somatization disorder, major depressive episode, and borderline personality disorder, Additional items provide information about substance abuse, childhood physical and sexual abuse, and secondary features of multiple personality disorder. These items provide information useful in the diffeirential diagnosis of dissociative disorders. The DDIS has an overall inter-rater reliability of 0.68. For the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder it has a specifity of 100% and a sensitivity of 90%.
(The inventory is included in the paper. Question 103 in section IX [Supernatural/Possession/ESP Experiences/Cults] reads: Have you ever had any extrasensory perception experiences such as e) deja vu[the feeling that what is happening to you has happened before?)
(The inventory is also available as Appendix A in: Ross CA, Multiple Personality Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Features, and Treatment. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1989.)
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An Illusion of Memory: False Recognition Influenced by Unconscious Perception
Jacoby LL, Whitehouse K
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118(2): 126-135, 1989
"Titchener (1928) described false recognition or paramnesia as an illusion of memory that is produced by "a disjunction of processes that are normally held together in a conscious present" (p. 425). He illustrated his argument with the example of a person who hastily glances across a street in preparation for crossing and is then momentarily distracted by the contents of a store window. On crossing the street, the person experiences false recognition as the feeling of having previously crossed that same street, a feeling of deja vu. By Titchener's account, "the preliminary glance, which naturally connects with the crossing in a single, total experience, is disjoined from the crossing,..., and comes to consciousness separately as the memory of a previous passage" (p. 425). This is described as the severing of "two phases of a single consciousness; the one is referred to the past; and the other, under the regular laws of memory, arouses the feeling of familiarity" (p. 425) p. 126.
"We set out to produce an illusion of memory of the sort described by Titchener (1928) and were successful in doing so. In Titchener's example, memory for a glance across a street was experienced as deja vu when the street was later crossed. We produced a similar illusion of memory by presenting an unconsciously perceived word before presenting that word in a test of recognition memory. Our results provide conclusive evidence for the existence of unconscious perception (cf. Holender, 1986)." p. 132.
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Pathogenesis of reduplicative paramnesia
Hakim H, Verma NP, Greifenstein MF
Neurology and Neuropsychology Services, Allen Park VA Medical Center, and The Department of Neurology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, USA
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 51: 839-841, 1988
SUMMARY
The incidence of reduplicative paramnesia was sampled with a structured interview in 50 consecutive alcoholic inpatients. Four had reduplicative paramnesia (RP group) and 46 did not (non-RP group). Three of four patients in RP group had acute right hemispheric lesions and none had a left hemispheric lesion; 19 non-RP patients had left hemispheric lesions, 2 had right, and 25 had none. These data are in keeping with the previous suggestions that the neuroanatomical basis for reduplicative paramnesia is an acute right hemispheric lesion superimposed on chronic diffuse or bifrontal deficit.
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Chronophrenia--a new syndrome in functional psychoses
Pethö B
Psychopathology 18(2-3): 174-80, 1985
Abstract
The author describes the 12-year history of a functional (endogenous) psychosis in a 25-year-old woman and the subsequent full social remission. The central symptom in the case history is the delusion that the patient has already lived through this life once. This delusion appears as the experience of reduplication, differing from that of déjà vu, based on mental automatism. It is accompanied by euphoria and the distortion of the future time perspective. The hypothesis of a disorder in the function of the limbic system arises as a possible pathophysiological explanation. Schizophrenic symptoms were absent and no defect was formed. This previously unknown syndrome presented by the use of the idiographic method may contribute to the widening of nomothetic nosological research.
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Psychiatric disorders
Kaplan HI, Sadock BJ
In: Modern Synopsis of Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry / IV, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1985
("Déjà vu is an illusion of recognition in which a new situation is incorrectly regarded as a representation of a previous memory. It can occur in normal persons, particularly in settings generating anxiety. It is more common in neurotic states and occurs occasionally in the aura of grand mal epilepsy. In jamais vu there is a feeling of unfamiliarity with a situation that one has actually experienced.
Related to déjà vu is déjà entendu, in which a comment never heard before is incorrectly regarded as a repetition of a previous conversation, and déjà pensé, in which a thought never entertained before is incorrectly regarded as a representation of a previous thought." p. 161)
("On the basis of the predominant symptoms, complex partial seizures can be subclassified as those with: [1] impairment of consciousness only, such as transient confusion; [2] cognitive symptoms, such as a sensation of déjà vu, jamais vu, distortion of time perception, or a sense of unreality; [3] affective symptoms, such as fear or anxiety; [4] psychosensory symptoms, such as illusions or hallucinations; [5] psychomotor phenomena, such as automatisms and masticatory movements, [6] speech disturbances, such as dysphasia or speech automatisms; and [7] compound forms of the above seizures." pp. 303-4)
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Hallucinations in children with conduct and emotional disorders: II. The follow-up study
Garralda ME
Children's Department, the Maudsley Hospital, London
Psychological Medicine 14(3): 597-604, 1984
Synopsis
In a controlled study, 20 children with hallucinations and emotional or conduct disorders were followed up into adulthood. The mean follow-up time was 17 years and the mean age at follow-up was 30 years. Hallucinations in childhood did not carry an increased risk for psychoses, depressive illness, organic brain damage or other psychiatric disorders. The continuation of hallucinations and episodes of altered awareness in some of the subjects may indicate a special predisposition to hallucinate.
From the paper:
"In addition, some psychiatric symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, neurotic depersonalization/derealization, deja-vu experiences, obsessional phenomena) were explored in more depth by extracting the relevant questions from the Present State Examination (Wing , J. K., et al. "SCAN. Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry." Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 47(6): 589-93, 1990)."
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Mental phenomena induced by stimulation in the limbic system
Halgren E
Human Neurobiology 1(4): 251-60, 1982
Summary
Direct electrical stimulation of any limbic sector may evoke a visceral sensation or an emotion, usually fear or anxiety. Vivid formed dream- or memory-like hallucinations, or intense feelings of familiarity, may be evoked from the hippocampal formation and amygdala. Conversely, amnesia may result from stimulation-induced bilateral disruption of the same region. Cingulate gyrus stimulation near the supplementary motor cortex may evoke partially adaptive movement sequences, or may interfere with the performance of movements. In general, those phenomena are not due to epileptic pathology, nor to gross spread of activation. The particular response evoked is not related to the precise electrode location, but rather to the patient's psychological traits and concerns. Thus, there is no direct relationship between specific mental contents and the activation of particular limbic neurons. Limbic stimulation appears to produce deep mental alterations whose manifestation at the surface of awareness, or in specific movements, is defined by the ongoing context.
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Dynamics of the hippocampal contribution to memory: Stimulation and recording studies in humans
Halgren E, Wilson CL, Squires NK, Engel J, Walter RD, Crandall PH
In: The Molecular, Cellular and Behavioral Neurobiology of the Hippocampus, W. Seifert (ed.), NYC: Academic Press, 1982
(From p. 21: "Some stimulations which do not cause amnesia will lead to powerful subjective menal phenomena, which apparently represent hyperactivation of the psychological processes which are missing in amnesia: familiarity (deja vu) and recall (memory-images). It is likely that HCF [hippocampal formation] stimulation evokes memory-images, at least in part, by directly promoting hallucinations per se. Deja vu, but not memory-images, could be secondary to activation of a distant epileptic focus. When the sites likely to be activated anti- or orthodromically by MTL [medial temporal lobe] stimulation are themselve stimulated directly, memory-images or deja vu are seldom evoked. Therefore, it appears that the MTL is a focal point for influencing neocortical areas in order to promote re-experiences of previous events, and to provide a sense of familiarity to aspects of ongoing experience.")
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The amygdala contribution to emotion and memory: Current studies in humans
Halgren E
In: The Amygdaloid Complex, INSERM Symposium No. 20, Y. Ben-Ari (ed.), 1981, pp. 395-408
(Illusions of familiarity [déjà vu] are just one of the many mental phenomena elicited by electrical stimulation of the amygdala.)
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The role of the amygdala in the expression of psychic phenomena in temporal lobe seizures
Gloor P, Olivier A, Quesney LF
The Amygdaloid Complex, INSERM Symposium no. 20, Y. Ben-Ari (ed.), 1981, pp. 489-498
Summary
Experiential phenomena occurring during spontaneous seizures or elicited by electrical brain stimulation were studied in 35 patients with intractable seizures in whom intracerebral depth electrodes had been implanted stereotaxically. The experiential phenomena observed were of a perceptual (visual, auditory or olfactory), mnemonic (memory recall or illusion of familiarity) or emotional type, or they encompassed a combination of these. Activation of limbic rather than of neocortical structures was required for the occurrence of virtually all the observed experiential phenomena, whether perceptual, mnemonic or emotional. Among the limbic structures the amygdala seemed to be predominantly and often exclusively involved in the elaboration of these phenomena. It is proposed that limbic, particularly amygdaloid activation, is required to let perceptual and mnemonic data processed by the temporal neocortex emerge into consciousness.
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Depersonalization
Barton JL
Southern Medical Journal 72(6): 770, 1979
(In this two paragraph letter to the editor, Dr. Barton comments on a paper by McKellar which stated that "the terms depersonalization, déjà vu and derealization have been frequently used interchangeably." He disagrees with the attribution and then offers definitions of these three phenomena. He says déjà vu "not uncommonly occurs in association with depersonalization or derealization but is unlikely to be confused or interchanged with these terms.")
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Le "déjà vu" élaboration d'un modèle d'approche hypothetique
de Nayer A
Psychiatria Clinica 12: 92-96, 1979
Abstract
Although psychiatric literature abounds in allusions to the phenomenon of ‘déjà vu’, few communications were devoted to an analysis of this interesting psychological state. After a short review of the ‘déjà vu’ conditions, the author proposes a model consisting of two channels. Under normal conditions, the first deals with the reading of information already stored, and the second, the engrammic channel, will store future information. The ‘déjà vu’ condition is produced when the reading channel and the engrammic channel meet in the same area. This mechanism can explain the various etiological possibilities of ‘déjà vu’, ranging from more or less ordinary cases such as fatigue or anguish to the most important etiology which is a psychotic process.
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Abnormal memory
Nichols AM
In: The Harvard Guide to Modern Psychiatry, A. M. Nichols (ed.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978
("Déjà vu and jamais vu may occur in schizophrenics, in patients suffering from certain psychoneuroses, in those with lesions of the temporal lobe including epilepsy, with patients in states of fatique or intoxication, and sometimes in normal individuals." p. 37)
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Mental phenomena evoked by electrical stimulation of the human hippocampal formation and amygdala
Halgren E, Walter RD, Cherlow DG, Crandall PH
Brain 101: 83-117, 1978
Summary
Of 3495 stimulations of the medial temporal lobe of 36 psychomotor epileptics, 267 were accompanied by reports of mental phenomena, including hallucinations of complete scenes, deja vu, anxiety, visceral sensations, amnesia, and unformed sensory experiences. Olfactory and frankly aggressive responses were not observed. The factors selecting whether a particular stimulus would evoke a mental phenomenon, and which category of mental phenomena would be evoked, could be explored because of the similarity across patients of the anatomical loci and protocols of stimulation. In general, a widespread electrographic response was necessary but not sufficient for an experiential response to occur. That is, 89 per cent of evoked mental phenomena were accompanied by an evoked potential (EP) and/or after-discharge (AD), but only 10 per cent of those stimuli that evoked an EP and/or AD also evoked a mental phenomenon. In contrast, only 2 per cent of stimuli that evoked neither an EP nor AD evoked a mental phenomenon. Contralateral EPs were rare. Anterior electrode sites, and sites contralateral to the focus, had a higher frequency of both electro graphic and mental responses. The category of mental phenomenon was not related to the anatomical site, however, but rather to patient-specific variables. Patients reporting fear scored higher on the 'psychesthenia' subscale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and patients experiencing hallucinations scored higher on the 'schizophrenic' subscale than did the other patients. Our findings suggest that, in contrast to the primary visual or somatosensory areas, where the evoked mental phenomena are highly predictable and are closely related to the anatomical site, the mental phenomena evoked by medial temporal lobe stimulation are idiosyncratic and variable, and are related to the personality of the patient stimulated.
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Der psychoanalytische Beitrag zur Schizoprenieforschung
[The psychoanalytic contribution to schizophrenia research] [in German]
Searles HF
Kindler Studienausgabe, 1974
(Für ein Schizophreniepatient: "Seine Erfahrung der Umwelt ist häufig durchdrungen mit Déjà-vu-Eindrückenund mit Erlebnissen, bei denen er Fremde fälschlicherweise für vertraute Gestalten aus seiner Vergangenheit hält." p. 179)
[For a schizophrenia patient: "His experience of the environment is frequently pervaded with déjà vuimpressions and with experiences in which he holds that persons he doesn't know are trusted figures from his past."]
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Temporal disorganization and delusional-like ideation: Processes induced by hashish and alcohol
Melges FT, Tinklenberg JR, Deardorff CM, Davies NH, Anderson RE, Owen CA
Archives of General Psychiatry 30: 855-861, 1974
Abstract
From studies of acutely paranoid psychiatric patients, we postulated that temporal disorganization might be involved in the emergence of delusional-like ideation (ie, feelings of influence, grandiosity and persecution). To test this postulate, high doses of tetrahydrocannabinol were used to induce temporal disorganization in carefully screened normal subjects who had no detectable predisposition to delusional ideation. Each subject was used as his own control for five experimental conditions (including comparably intoxicating alcohol doses as well as placebo) at weekly intervals. Tetrahydrocannabinol conditions induced significantly greater temporal disorganization and delusional-like ideation. For all subjects, there were substantial change correlations between temporal disorganization and delusional-like ideation. The findings indicate that changes in the rate, sequence, and goal-directedness of thinking processes were involved in the emergence of unusual thought content.
(Déjà vu-like experiences were evoked by hashish consumption. p. 859)
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Clinical phenomenology
Jovanovic´ UJ
In: Psychomotor Epilepsy (A polydimensional study). Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, Publishers, 1974
("The experience is often familiar, or reminiscent of some previous event. Gowers [1902] called this phenomenon déjà vu; Jackson [1899] referred to it as reminiscence." p. 19)
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The mechanism of deja vu
Kirshner LA
Diseases of the Nervous System 34(5): 246-9, 1973
(After providing a brief overview of déjà vu, the author presents two cases of persistent déjà vu. He then writes: "Our impression ... is that the experience is traumatic, an interference with the normal process of reality testing, as demonstrated clearly by patient 2 who projected or externalized the trauma. In fact, déjà vu is commonly experienced with anxiety as a disruption. Thus Levitan follows Fenichel in describing it as the failure of a defensive process." p. 258)
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Flashbacks
Zeidenberg P
Psychiatric Annals 3(5): 14-9, 1973
(In this paper the author is primarily concerned with the flashbacks that occur with some mind-altering drugs. On page 16, he expresses the opinion that déjà vu is due to emotional flashbacks.)
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Déjà-vu
Heimann H
Definition in: Lexikon der Psychiatrie, Christian Müller (ed.), Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1973, pp. 92-3
(in the 1986 edition, the definition of déjà vu is on pp. 143-4)
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Derealization and déjà vu: Formal mechanisms
Siomopoulos V
American Journal of Psychotherapy 26: 84-9, 1972
SUMMARY
This paper suggests the possibility that perceptual wholes might be capable of forming larger object-affect wholes with the affective states associated with them. The phenomena of derealization and deja vu appear to be reflections of disturbances in the organization of perceptual wholes and their affective components into such larger object-affect wholes. In derealization, a familiar affect is missing from a familiar object-affect whole. This is due to repression of pure affect viewed not as cathexis of an idea, but as a separate psychic structure. In déjà vu, the feeling of object familiarity is actually an awareness of a familiar affect constituting part of an object-affect whole. The phenomena of derealization and déjà vu appear to support the view that the affects are independent psychic structures following their own formal laws.
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Symptoms encountered in mental illness
Curran D, Partridge M, Storey P
In: Psychological Medicine, Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1972
(On p. 57 the author wrote that déjà vu is associated with fatigue and/or sleepiness.)
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A study of depersonalization in students
Myers DH, Grant G
British Journal of Psychiatry 121: 39-65, 1972
("The phenomena of familiarity and of perspective seem to be involved both in agoraphobia on the one hand and in depersonalization and déjà vu on the other. This is consonant with the possibility that déjà vu and depersonalization are part of a system which can modulate, fairly selectively, sensory input in order to minimize agoraphobia." p. 62)
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Depersonalization phenomena in psychiatric patients
Brauer R, Harrow M, Tucker GJ
British Journal of Psychiatry 117: 509-15, 1970
Abstract
The present research, designed to investigate the presence of depersonalization in psychiatric patients, found that depersonalization occurs more frequently in younger patients who are frequently anxious, who seem to be preoccupied with internal processes, and who have a tendency toward cyclothymia and depression. From this study depersonalization and derealization seem to be two aspects of the same phenomenon, and in this respect emerge as symptoms rather than as discrete diagnostic entities. One interesting question is whether these phenomena are lifelong events or occur only at the times of an emotional illness, as proposed by Mayer-Gross. The current data, particularly the correlations with the various personality inventories which are usually indicative of longstanding personality traits, would indicate that these phenomena are probably present throughout most of life but are intensified and noted more during periods of emotional distress.
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Delusions and Hallucinations
Weinstein EA
In: Origin and Mechanisms of Hallucinations. Wolfram Keup (ed.) New York: Plenum Press, 1970
("One patient, awaiting a craniotomy for repair of a ruptured aneurysm, stated that the same operation had been previously performed. Here we may recognize temporal reduplication as an enduring déjà vuphenomenon." p. 54)
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Migraine auras and classical migraine
Sacks O
In: Migraine: The Evolution of a Common Disorder, University of California Press, 1970
(There is also Migraine: Revised and Expanded, University of California Press, 1992 and a German version: Migäne, Rowolt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994, see pp. 131-3).
("Among the strangest and most intense symptoms of migraine aura, and the most difficult of description or analysis, are the occurrence of feelings of sudden familiarity and certitude (déjà vu) or its opposite, feelings of sudden strangeness and unfamiliarity (jamais vu). Such states are experienced, momentarily and occasionally, by everyone: their occurrence in migraine auras (as in epileptic auras, psychoses, etc.) is marked by their overwhelming intensity and relatively long duration." p. 89)
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Hallucinations
Feldman M, Bender MB
In: Origin and Mechanisms of Hallucinations. Wolfram Keup (ed.), NYC: Plenum Press, 1970
(Déjà vu mentioned on p. 32.)
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Depersonalization phenomena in psychiatric patients
Brauer R, Harrow M, Tucker GJ
British Journal of Psychiatry 117: 309-15, 1970
Summary
The present research, designed to investigate the presence of depersonalization in psychiatric patients, found that depersonalization occurs more frequently in younger patients who are frequently anxious, who seem to be preoccupied with internal processes, and who have a tendency toward cyclothymia and depression. From this study depersonalization and derealization seem to be two aspects of the same phenomenon, and in this respect emerge as symptoms rather than as discrete diagnostic entities. One interesting question is whether these phenomena are lifelong events or occur only at the times of an emotional illness, as proposed by Mayer-Gross. The current data, particularly the correlations with the various personality inventories which are usually indicative of longstanding personality traits, would indicate that these phenomena are probably present throughout most of life but are intensified and noted more during periods of emotional distress.
("Déjà vu phenomena, although reported in 92 per cent of the patients (but experienced frequently in only 15 per cent), correlated with very few of the variables that depersonalization and derealization did, and thus most likely represent a different type of symptom or experiential state (Table IV)." p. 513)
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Patterns of reduplication in organic brain disease
Weinstein EA
Chapter 14 in: Handbook of Clinical Neurology, Vol. 3. P. J. Vinken and G. W. Bruyn (eds.) New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1969, pp. 251-7
("With a déjà vu experience there may be intense feelings of familiarity, anticipation, nostalgia, amusement and occasionally of discomfort and terror." p. 255)
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Disorders of the time sense
Gooddy W
Chapter 13 in: Handbook of Clinical Neurology. vol. 3, P. J. Vinken and G. W. Bruyn (eds.). NYC: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1969, pp. 229-250
(Déjà vu is treated on pp. 238 and 246-7.)
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Deja vu and depersonalization in normal subjects
Harper MA
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 3:67-74, 1969
Summary
The author presents a survey of the literature, together with a study of the phenomena of déjà vu and depersonalization in a largely healthy population. He concludes that the déjà vu experience as elicited by a clinical type interview is common particularly in intelligent subjects of higher socioeconomic status. Well defined depersonalization experiences will also be elicited by clinical enquiry from subjects free from major psychiatric disability.
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Cerebral localisation of disorders of higher nervous activity
Glonung K, Hoff H
Chapter 3 in: Handbook of Clinical Neurology, vol. 3, NYC: John Wiley & Sons, 1969
(Experiences of déjà vu, déjà entendu and déjà connu are discussed on pp. 32-3.)
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Déjà vu -- as related to diagnostic categories in psychiatric and neurosurgical patients
Richardson TF, Winokur G
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 146(2): 161-4, 1968
Summary
A group of 301 hospitalized psychiatric patients and 161 neurosurgical patients were studied, and the reporting of déjà vu was found to be 44 and 40 per cent, respectively. These groups were broken down into diagnostic categories, and it was found that in the psychiatric group, patients with the diagnosis of personality disorder or miscellaneous psychiatric diagnosis (situational reactions), reported déjà vu significantly more than the group mean. There was no reporting of déjà vu in the psychiatric patients with organic brain syndromes.
No neurosurgical diagnostic group reported déjà vu more or less frequently than the mean for the group. These findings further confirm that the reporting of déjà vu is a relatively common phenomenon, probably no more frequent in seizure or ceregram tumor patients than in other patients or even control patients without cerebral pathology.
It was found that déjà vu is reported more often in patients with a psychiatric illness than in patients with no psychiatric or no cerebral pathology. Further evidence was presented to show that this could be due to the high reporting of déjà vu by patients with personality disorder and situational reactions. It is suggested that the phenomenon of déjà vu may be of help in clarifying the vague psychiatric diagnostic categories called personality disorder and situational reactions.
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A review of the effects of sleep deprivation
Tucker RP
University of Michigan Medical Center Journal 34(3): 161-4, 1968
(They cite a 1959 paper by Brauchi and West that reported on a radio disk jockey who, as part of a contest, went 168 hours and 33 minutes without sleep. He became psychotic and had to be hospitalized "with depersonalization and frightening déjà vu." p. 162)
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Déjà vu, déjà entendu, déjà raconté, Automatismen, fausse reconnaissance und kryptomanie
[Déjà vu, déjà entendu, déjà raconté, automatisms, false recognition and cryptomaina] [in German]
Meier CA
Chapter 2 in: Die Empire des Unbewussten, Zürich: Rascher Verlag, 1968
(Prof. Meier suggested that such phenomena may be due to a "leak" in the "wall" that separates the conscious mind from the unconscious. p. 71)
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Déjà vu in psychiatric and neurosurgical patients
Richardson TF, Winokur G
Archives of General Psychiatry 17(5): 622-5, 1967
Summary
A systematic interview was performed on two entirely different hospital populations to obtain the incidence of deja vu and possible related variables. The findings closely parallel those of Chapman and Mensh on a general medical population; the incidence of deja vu is a phenomenon that is equally common in men and women; it is inversely proportional to age; and it is probably related to education, occupation, and travel. Negroes report the phenomenon less frequently than whites. From the present study it was also found that female psychiatric patients probably have an increased- incidence of deja vu. It is realized that "statistical significance" is not necessarily "clinical importance," but it is felt from this study that it can be assumed the incidence of deja vu is sufficiently common to be of questionable help in such conditions as temporal lobe or psychomotor epilepsy diagnoses.
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Transvestism, impotence and temporal lobe dysfunction
Hunter R
Journal of Neurological Science 4: 357-360, 1967
(There are several references to déjà vu on pages 358-360.)
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Vorstellungsanomalien, Trugerinnerungen
[Imagination anomalies, misleading memories] [in German]
Jaspers K
Section e in: Allgemeine Psychopathologie, 3. Auflage, Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1965
(He provides an example of déjà vu as experienced by a patient suffering from schizophrenia. p. 66)
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Behavioral responses to stimulation of human hippocampus, hippocampal gyrus and amygdala
(American EEG Society meeting abstract)
Walter RD, Chapman L, Porter R, Crandall P, Rand R
Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 17: 461, 1964
(Déjà vu is listed among the symptoms evoked by electrical stimulation of temporal lobes in 10 patients during evaluation for temporal lobectomies.)
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The brain's record of auditory and visual experience
Penfield W, Perot P
Brain 86(4): 595-694, 1963
("[G]entle electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe cortex also produced sudden 'feelings' -- sometimes the feeling of familiarity that clinicians had been in the habit of calling déjà vu, sometimes an alteration in the apparent meaning of things seen or heard." p. 597)
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Capgras syndrom und déjà vu
[Capgras syndrome and deja vu experience] [in German]
Dietrich H
Fortschritte der Neurologie und Psychiatrie 30: 617-25, 1962
(Based on a case the author compares normal dèjà vu with that occurring in connection with mental illness, especially a form that appears together with the Capgras syndrome in which the afflicted person denies knowing someone they actually know well. For the normal dèja vu he quotes from Berndt-Larsson's definition:
"Mitten in einer beliebigen Beschäftigung überfällt einen plötzlich einige Sekunden oder Minuten das bestimmtee Gefühl, schon früher einmal gerade diese Situation mit allen Details und allen Nebenumständen -- genau in derselben Weise wie jetzt -- erlebt zu haben. Gleichzeitig packt einen ein Gefühl von Unwirklichkeit und Unbehagen. Es ist, als hätte man voraussagen können, was gerade geschieht und was demnächst geschehen wird. Plötzlich ist das Symptom weg, ebenso rasch und unerklärlich verschwunden, wie es gekommen war." p. 623.
[In the middle of some activity one is suddenly overcome for a few seconds or minutes with that specific, undeniable feeling of having experienced just this situation with all its details and all concomitants -- precisely in the same way as now. Simultaneously, one is grabbed by a feeling of irreality and unease. It is as if one could have told in advance what was happening just now and what would happen next. Suddenly, the symptom is gone, disappeared just as quickly and inexplicably as it came."¨]
The form experienced by the mentally ill is also defined by Berndt-Larrson as:
"Seiner Natur nach ist es aufdringlich, störrisch und weicht nicht logischen Gründen gegenüber. Der Kranke ist in der Regel von der Wirklichkeit eines früheres Erlebnisses vollkommen überzeugt. Er kann es bestimmt in Zeit und Raum lokalisieren. Es ist ihm einmal oder mehrmals vorher passiert, es hat sich identisch gleich oder nahezu gleich wie jetzt zugetragen. Es breitet sich gerne aus und verwebt sich mit seinem übrigen paranoiden oder schizophrenen Ideen." p. 623.
[According to its nature it is intrusive, intractable and does not give way to logical reasons. As a rule the ill person is completely convinced about the reality of his or her earlier experience. They are certain they can localize it in time and space. It has happened to them once or many times; it occurred at that time exactly or nearly exactly as it has now. It spreads out and interweaves itself with the rest of their paranoid or schizophrenic ideas.])
(cf.: Berndt-Larrson H: Über das Déjà vu und andere Täuschungen des Bekanntheitsgefühls. Z. ges. Neurol. Psychiat. 1931 133: 521-543)
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Über abnormes Zeiterleben bei einer Schizophrenen
[About abnormal time experience in a schizophrenic] [in German]
Ciompi L
European Neurology 142: 100-121, 1961
(Déjà vu discussed on p. 105.)
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A contribution to the analysis of déjà vu
Schneck JM
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 132: 91-3, 1961
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Brain Mechanisms in Emotion
Arnold MP
In: Emotions and Personality, Vol. II, part I, Magda P. Arnold (ed.), NYC: Columbia University Press, 1960
(Déjà vu must be due to "some defect in neural conduction" and "is a frequent and conspicuous symptom in mental disease [see Bellak, 1958]. p. 66)
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Depressive states and their borderlands: Classification, diagnosis and treatment
Roth M
Comprehensive Psychiatry 1(3): 135-155, 1960
("There are other interesting disturbances of consciousness, the most important being the syncopal attacks in about ten percent of cases and symptoms such as déjà vu phenomena, metamorphopsia and panoramic memory reminiscent of temporal lobe dysfunction, which occur in some 40 per cent." [p. 142])
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Le syndrome de Korsakov
[The Korsakoff syndrome] [in French]
In: Manuel de Psychiatrie
H. Ey, P. Bernard, Ch. Brisset (eds.), Paris: Mission et Cie, 1960
(Déjà vu is mentioned on p. 263.)
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Part I: Brain Mechanisms in Emotion
Arnold MP
In: Emotion and Personality, Vol. II: Neurological and Physiological Aspects. Columbia University Press, NYC. 1960
(Déjà vu must be due to "some defect in neural conduction" and "is a frequent and conspicuous symptom in mental disease [see Bellak, 1958]. p. 66)
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Interpretive responses
Penfield W, Roberts L
Section D in the Recording of Consciousness chapter of: Speech and Brain Mechanisms, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959
(When patients experience a sudden sense of familiarity when stimulated by electrodes at points 14 and 15 on the temporal lobe [see diagram of Fig III-5], "clinicians have long called them 'déjà vu' [already seen] phenomena. They are false interpretations of the present and therefore are called illusions." p.47)
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Functional localization in temporal and deep sylvan areas
Penfield W
Chapter 6 in: The Brain and Human Behavior, Research Publications No.36, Proceedings of the December 7-8 meeting of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, Harry C. Solomon, Stanley Cobb, and Wilder Penfield (eds.), Williams & Williams, Co., Baltimore, 1958, pp. 210-226
("Illusions of familiarity ['déjà vu'] were produced by stimulation only in cases in which this had been reported by the patient as an aura. They also occurred predominantly as the result of discharge or stimulation in the temporal lobe of the hemisphere which is minor for speech and handedness." p. 222)
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Some mechanisms of consciousness discovered during electrical stimulation of the brain
Penfield W
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 44(2): 51-66, 1958
"Then point 15 was stimulated, and she said, "Just a tiny flash of familiarity and a feeling that I knew everything that was going to happen in the near future." To explain this, she added, 'as though I had been through all this before.'" p. 63
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The schizophrenic syndrome
Bellak L
In: Schizophrenia: A Review of the Syndrome, Bellak L (ed.), NYC: Logos Press, 1958
(Déjà vu mentioned on pp. 12, 21, 27.)
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Space, Time and Consciousness
Kooy JMJ
Journal of Parapsychology 21: 259-272, 1957
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Einige variationen des Ichgefühls
[Several variations of the I feeling] [in German]
Federn P
In: Ich psychologie und die Psychosen, Bern: Hans Huber Verlag, 1956
(Déjà vu mentioned on pp. 29, 53-4, 235.)
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The twenty-ninth Maudsley lecture: The role of the temporal cortex in certain psychical phenomena
Penfield W
Journal of Mental Science 101: 451-465, 1955
Abstract
Electrical stimulation of the cortex of the temporal lobe may activate psychical responses which are experiential if concerned with the reexperiencing of earlier happenings and interpretive if alterations of interpretations of current experience. These result chiefly from stimulation of that portion of the lobe that is hidden within the Sylvian fissure. Temporal lobe seizures may activate similar states—psychical hallucination such as flash-back feelings or psychical illusions, such as déjà vu phenomena, or an amnesic seizure-psychomotor confusion.
("The sense of familiarity ('déjà vu') is an interpretation -- it might be called a feeling or even an emotion -- which accompanies new experiences. It is a reaction which is set off very easily in some patients and, it should be added, in some individuals who are not subject to overt seizures. The reaction may have the same character regardless of the nature of the experience." p. 464)
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Die Störung von Zeit und Raum in der Hirnpathologie
[Disorders of time and space in cerebral pathology] [in German]
Glonung I, Glonung K, Hoff H
Wiener Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde und deren Grenzgebiete 10: 346-377, 1955
(Déjà vu, déjà entendu and déjà connu are treated on pp. 271-4.)
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Die psychopathologie der höher strukturierten psychischen Vorgänge
[The psychopathology of the higher structured psychological processes] [in German]
Bash KW
In: Lehrbuch der Allgemeinen Psychopathologie, Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag, 1955
(cf. pp. 182-3)
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Illusions of comparative interpretation and emotion
Mullan S, Penfield W
AMA Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 81: 269-284, 1954
(They report on results of electical stimulation of various parts of the brain via electrodes. In their conclusions, they wrote: "Illusions of familiarity were predominantly associated with epileptic discharge or electrical stimulation in the temporal region of the hemisphere that is minor for handedness and speech. However, this preponderance is less invariable than in the case of visual illusions." p. 283.)
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One form of paramnesia: The illusion of déjà vu
Leeds M
Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 38:24-42, 1944
Summary
As a young man the author had numerous déjà vu experiences and decided to note 144 of them down with brief descriptons over a time span of 14 months. Their frequency diminished as his level of stress and fatigue decreased. In this connection he quotes from Titchener* and William James**. With time he arrived at these conclusions:
1. No apparent cycle of any kind
2. Intensity and duration are closely linked
3. As the frequency if the incidents decreases, the intensity and durantion of each experience increases
4. The experiences tend to group together
5. The curve of intensity often shows a rising, then falling sequence for a group of experiences
6. The illusion may occur during sleep, in a dream.
As a supplement, the descriptions of 14 further experiences were added. He observed that his experiences tended to occur less frequently on mornings and during meals. He observed that they tended to increase as mealtimes were approaching. He added that they tend to peak between 8 and 9 pm.
As a shop steward, he was able to make a survey in person of 100 shop workers (62 men and 38 women, most were Jewish and between the ages of 17 and 30). 89 said they had had such experiences, 8 said they hadn't and 3 abstained from answering. 14 said their experiences occurred often, 31 occasionally, and 35 said seldom or rarely. As for explanations, 22 said elements were from past experiences, 16 claimed they arose from dreams or prophecy, 7 put it down to daydreaming and fantasy, 6 believed they were the result of reincarnation, 2 said they were due to spirit wandering or a second self, 2 said they just had bad memory, 1 said it was due to a pause in brain operation, and 1 opined it was due to excitement or change. There was no gender dependence.
* Titchener EB, A Beginner's Psychology. Macmillan, New York, 1917, pp. 187-8.
** James W, The Principles of Psychology, vol. I, Henry Holt & Co., NYC, 1880.
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Symptomatology
Wilson SAK
From Chapter LXXXVI in: Neurology. A. N. Bruce (ed.) Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins company, 1940
(The author wrote: "As for the dreamy state, it can be extremely brief, or prolonged into the space of a few minutes. Comprised thereunder are conditions for which a variety of phrases have been coined by those with experience of it -- 'a feeling of having been there before', 'feeling of being somewhere else', 'reverie', 'double consciousness', 'recurrence of an old dream', 'memories of things that happened in childhood', 'feeling of strangeness and unreality'. Sometimes the sensation is so weird and evanescent as to elude depiction; it so transcends reality that the subject feels he is quivering on the brink of the unknown; sometimes there are 'terrible thoughts' that cannot be uttered." p. 1479)
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Mental symptoms in cases of tumor of the temporal lobe
Keschner M, Bender M, Strauss I
Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 35: 572-596, 1936
("Some patients complain of a 'feeling of having been in exactly the same situation as before' -- the déjà vustate. This is relatively rare, and we did not observe it in any of our cases." pp. 577-8)
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Report of an inquiry into precognitive dreams
Besterman T
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 41: 196, 1932-3.
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Über das Déjà vu und andere Täuschungen des Bekanntheitsgefühls
["Concerning Déjà Vu and other illusions of the Familiarity Feeling"] [in German]
Berndt-Larrson H
Zeitschrift für die gesammte Neurolologie und Psychiatrie 133: 521-543, 1931.
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General Paralysis with "déjà vu" Phenomenon
Dawson WS
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 20(5): 634-5, 1927
(The author reports on a case in which the man claimed he had had dreams that told him the future [precognitive dreams]. The author terms this "déjà vu" and fears that it "is being worked into a grandiose delusion." p. 635)
(available on-line at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2101168/ )
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[The Symptom of the déjà vu illusion in creative processes]
[In Russian]
Skvortzov KA
Klinicheskii Arkhiv Geneal Nosti i Odarennosti 1: 111-?, 1925
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(Quotation)
Titchener EB, A Beginner's Psychology, Macmillan, NYC, 1917, pp. 187-8.
"Most of us, probably, have an occasional acquaintance with what is called paramnesia or wrong recognition: a definite ' feeling that all this has happened before,'sometimes connected with a 'feeling that we know exactly what is coming,' — a 'feeling' which persists for a few seconds and carries positive conviction, in spite of the fact and the knowledge that the experience is novel; Dickens gives an instance in David Copperfield. Various explanations have been offered of the phenomenon. It occurs most frequently after periods of emotional stress, or in the state of extreme mental fatigue; that is, at a time when the associative tendencies in the brain are abnormally weak ; and it seems to depend, essentially, upon a disjunction of mental processes that are normally held together in a single state of attention. Suppose the following case: you are about to cross a crowded street, and you take a hasty glance in both directions to make sure of a safe passage. Now your eye is caught, for a moment, by the contents of a shop window; and you pause, though only for a moment, to survey the window before you actually cross the street. Paramnesia would then appear as the feeling that you had already crossed; the preliminary glance up and down, which ordinarily connects with the crossing in a single attentive experience, is disjoined from the crossing ; the look at the window, casual as it was, has been able to disrupt the associative tendencies. As you cross, then, you think 'Why, I crossed this street just now'; your nervous system has severed two phases of a single experience, both of which are familiar, and the latter of which appears accordingly as a repetition of the earlier. The illusion will evidently be strengthened if, as is only natural, the casual look at the window does not recur to you. This is an imaginary case, simplified for clearness of exposition; and we cannot be at all sure that the explanation which it suggests is correct; for cases of paramnesia cannot be realised at will, and the nervous condition that leads to them is not favourable to scientific observation; but something of the sort must take place."
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Die Erinnerungstäuschungen der "reduplizierenden Paramnesie" und des "déjà vu", ihre klinische Differenzierung und ihre psychologischen Beziehungen zueinander
[The memory illusion of "reduplicative paramnesia" and "déjà vu", their clinical differentiation and their psychological relationships with each other] [in German]
Rosenberg M
Zeitschrift für Pathopsychologie 1: 561-602, 1912
(This paper makes a clear distinction between reduplicative paramnesia [as described by Pick in his 1901 paper] and déjà vu. It is in the latter that the individual is immediately confronted with the impression of having lived through something before in all its detail while with the former the impression gradually grows as the experience progresses [p. 561]. Pages 587 to 599 are devoted to a lengthy discussion of déjà vu with many examples and case reports. Especially valuable is the distinction made between how déjà vu is experienced by normal people [of short duration and dream-like] and by ill persons who tend to believe, he said, that there is a mysterious purpose at work behind what they are living through [p. 594].)
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Psychological Literature: Hysteria, Paramnesia
(No authorship indicated)
Psychological Review 1(1): 93-95, 1894
Abstract
Discusses the topics of hysteria and paramnesia, highlighting two articles: one by Bernheim entitled On the Psychical Nature of Hysterical Unilateral Amblyopia and Sensitivo-sensorial Hemianaesthesia (see record 1894-10029-001), and one by A. Lalande entitled Des Paramnésies (1893). For the first article, in taking the case of a youth of 19, the upper left half of whose body was completely anaesthetic, Bernheim defends the view that the insensibility in such hysterical cases is not real, but only mental, just like that produced by suggestion in hypnotic subjects. The second article focuses on Lalande's theory on paramnesia, the illusion of feeling as if one had already undergone the experience which may be passing. Lalande suggests that unconscious telepathic perception, if made conscious by the succeeding mental state, might give rise to the sense of a previous experience repeated.
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(Quotation)
James W
The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, Henry Holt & Co., 1890, pp. 675-6
"There is a curious experience which everyone seems to have had -- the feeling that the present moment in its completeness has been experienced before -- we were saying just this thing, in just this place, to just these people, etc. This 'sense of pre-existence' has been treated as a great mystery and occasioned much speculation. Dr. Wigan considered it due to a dissociation of the action of the two hemispheres, one of them becoming conscious a little later than the other, but both of the same fact.* I must confess that the quality of the mystery seems to me a little strained. I have over and over again in my own case succeeded in resolving the phenomenon into a case of memory, so indistinct that whilst some past circumstances are presented again, the others are not. The dissimilar portions of the past do not arise completely enough at first for the date to be identified. All we get is the present scene with a general suggestion of pastness about it. That faithful observer, Prof. Lazarus, interprets the phenomenon in the same way;** and it is noteworthy that just as soon as the past context grows complete and distinct the emotion of weirdness fades from the experience."
* Duality of the Mind, p. 84. The same thesis is defended by the late Mr. R. H. Proctor, who gives some cases rather hard to reconcile with my own proposed explanation. In 'Knowledge' for Nov. 8, 1884. See also Ribot, Maladies de la Mémoire, p. 149ff.
** Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft Vol. 5, p. 146
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OUR TWO BRAINS
Proctor, RA
Knowledge No. 161, Nov. 28, 1884, pp. 435-6
Summary
The author reviews and reacts to the hypothesis made by Dr. A. L. Wigan in his book The Duality of the Mind (1844) that instances of the "sentiment of pre-existence" may be due to delayed transmisssion of impressions from one cerebral hemisphere to the other. Proctor says "It is a sudden feeling, as if some scene just witnessed had been presented before in all its details with 'the same speakers, seated in the same positions, saying the same words, and uttering the same sentiments.'" He goes on to say, "The attempt has more than once been made to explain the phenomenon we are considering as merely the reproduction of some early and all but forgotten impressions of a scene more or less resembling the one actually before us at the moment when the sensation is experienced. But no one who rightly apprehends the nature of this "sentiment of pre-existence" can for a moment adopt such an explanation." He goes on to explain why. He then recounts examples in which early childhood memories did indeed play a role in producing a sense of uncanny familiarity. He discounts explanations from dreams, saying "... the "sentiment of pre-existence" is more precise than any mere dream recollections, and is directly associated with some actual scene and with a series of events actually in progress when it is momentarily excited."
He relates an experience he himself once had while watching a parade in America: "Suddenly it appeared to me that at some remote time -- thousands of years ago -- all that was then passing had been experienced before. The same procession in every detail had passed before me, lit up by the same glow from an illuminated house behind; my wife and children had at that remote time stood beside me as they stood beside me now. Persons whose acquaintance I had only made a few weeks before were there then -- thousands of years ago -- even as now : and strangers still, if the matter be thought of a little, I had had the same views about the events in progress and the persons standing by me, then as at the moment of time when this sentiment of pre-existence took possession of my mind."
He opines that he knows no better explanation than the one put forward by Dr. Wigan and agrees with him that such experiences only occur when the individual is "exhausted by excitement, or is from indisposition or any other cause languid." This is illustrated by the passage he then quotes of the experience that Dr. Wigan had when at the funeral of Princess Charlotte in St. Georges Chapel, Windsor.
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Ueber Erinnerungstäuschungen und Nervenkrankheiten
[Concerning memory illusions and nervous diseases] [in German]
Sander W
Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten 4: 244-253, 1874
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Ueber doppeltes Bewusstsein bei Geisteskranken
[Concerning doubled consciousness in the mentally ill] [in German]
Wiedemeister
Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 27: 711-717, 1871
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(Quotation)
Lazarus, M
Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft 5:146, 1868
"Umgekehrt ereignet es sich nicht selten, dass Gedanken ins Bewusstsein auch des Gesunden kommen, welche ihm überraschend, unerwartet und wunderbar erscheinen; in der eigenen Seele aufsteigend erscheinen sie als die eigenen und doch zugleich fremd. Einmal in der oft beobachteten fällen einer scheinbaren aber täuschenden Erinnerung; wir halten oder hören ein Gespräch, sehen oder erfahren einen Vorgang, und meinen alles dies hätten wir ganz genau schon so gehört oder gesehen, und doch können wir uns wiederum darauf besinnen, dass dies nicht der Fall ist, oder wenigstens nicht darauf besinnen, dass es der Fall sei.
In all solchen Fällen, die ich an mir selbst zu beobachten Gelegenheit hatte, ist es mir gelungen, die Erklärung darin zu finden, dass von der jetzt gegebenen Vorstellungsreihe eine beträchtliche Anzahl von Elementen und zwar in analoger Unordnung und gleichen Abständen wirklich in der Erinnerung gegeben war (z. B. wenn für die alphabetische Reihe A bis K etwa wirklich A B r D E s G H I t gegeben werden.)"
["Conversely, it happens not infrequently that thoughts come into the consciousness of the healthy as well, which seem to him surprising, unexpected and wonderful; arising in one's own soul, they appear as their own and at the same time alien. For example in the oft observed cases of an apparent but deceptive memory; we are holding or listening to a conversation, seeing or experiencing a happening, and believe we precisely had heard or saw all of it just so, but on the other hand we know that this is not the case, or at least not remember it that way.
In all such cases, which I had occasion to observe on myself, I have succeeded in finding the explanation in that in the present series of ideas a considerable number of elements, indeed in analogous disarray and equal distances, are really present in memory (for example, if for the alphabetical series A to K something like AB r DE s GHI t were given.)"]