Conclusions

Deja vu is experienced by a majority of the population, and occurs about once a year in experients. The incidence decreases with age but increases with education and socioeconomic class.

Deja vu is more common under conditions of stress and fatigue, and it is experienced more frequently by persons who travel.

Societal acceptance of the phenomenon appears to have increased over recent decades. Though deja vu historically has been linked to temporal lobe epilepsy and schizophrenia, this association has not been convincingly demonstrated.

Explanations of the phenomenon have included (a) momentary alteration in the normal operation of two usually coordinated cognitive processes; (b) neurological dysfunction (seizure, slowed synaptic transmission); (c) implicit memory activation based on familiarity of processing, object, or gestalt configuration; and (d) unattended perception (under distraction) followed immediately by a fully aware perception.

Although the deja vu experience occupies a solid position in the popular culture, the community of research psychologists has been largely silent on the topic. It is hoped that the use of more sophisticated research techniques to help elucidate this illusion of recognition will change this situation and that the findings from such research efforts could expand the field’s understanding of routine memory functions. As Roediger and McDermott (2000) suggested, “distortions of memory provide a fertile ground for studying interesting and important psychological phenomena” (p. 123).