Deja What?
Tanika Graham AND Callie Zane
Deja Vu
I chose deja vu because it interested me and I wanted to learn more about it. It seemed like a supernatural event and I want to know why and how we experience deja vu.
What is Deja Vu?
Deja Vu translates to "already seen". In Edward B. Titcheners book "A Textbook Of Psychology" he explained deja vu as having partial perception. A brief glimpse of an object or situation before the brain has time to "construct" a full conscious perception of the experience. Arthur Funkhouser suggests that there are several types of Deja Vu. Deja visite meaning already visited and deja vecu meaning already experienced or lived.
Deja Vu and the Brain
Psychologists don't know the real reason why it happens but they have many theories. One of the theories is miss matching in the brain, causing us to mistake the present for the past. It is also suggested to be a mix up between the sensory input and the memory calling output. Parts in the brain being used are electroencephalograph signals from the rhinial cortices, hippocampus, and amygdala.
Deja Vu Research
A cognitive researcher Anne Cleary and her colleagues experimented with Deja Vu. The scientist had college students wear a head mounted technology that displays immersed them in a 3-D virtual reality of a village that they called Deja Ville. The researchers found Deja Vu occurred when new scenes were very similar to past experience in terms of their spacial layout but not close enough that people recognized the resemblance consciously.
Interesting Factoids
Chris Moulin diagnosed people who suffer from chronic Deja Vu. The people are able to describe detailed events that haven't happened.
Blind people may experience Deja Vu through a smell, hearing and touching sense.
Sites used
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Déjà_vu
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-freedom/201004/the-meaning-deja-vu (first paragraph)
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/question657.htm
http://examinedexistence.com/how-does-deja-vu-work-the-science-behind-deja-vu/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201208/the-neuroscience-d-j-vu