• Question: Can you explain deja vu and if it really has to do with short and long term memory?

    Asked by Jessicx.x to Natalie on 15 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Natalie Doig

      Natalie Doig answered on 15 Mar 2017:


      What a fantastic and interesting question – and I cannot give you a solid answer. There is a memory theory of Deja vu, and I will first say that we do not fully understand how memory works normally, so we will probably understand deja vu better in the future. Deja vu is also difficult to study, as you may imagine! A theory is that you have a memory related to something (like a feeling) and then you see something which triggers that giving you the sensation that you have seen it before. Or it could be that you have learned something, then forgotten it, but you still have a sensation of having seen it before. Or it could be to do with signals from different parts of the brain arriving at slightly the wrong times. Interestingly deja vu can now be studied better using virtual reality – see here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deja-vu-found-originate-similar-scenes/
      However, it could just be a “glitch in the matrix”.

Comments