Another Anomalous

Two sets of outcomes suggest that belief in, or acceptance of, the deja vu experience has increased across recent decades. Gallup and Newport (1991) found that from 1978 to 1990, the amount of people who believed in the deja vu experience nearly doubled from 30% to 55%. In addition, the General Social Survey showed an increase in the reported lifetime incidence of deja vu from 59% in the 1970s (McCready & Greeley, 1976) to 68% in the 1980s (NORC, 1984, 1988, 1989).

This societal increase in the belief in, and reporting of, deja vu experiences may account for the decrease in reported deja vu incidence with age. To be more specific, older cohorts matured during an era in which belief in deja vu was not as accepted as it is today.

Aside from the anomalous decrease in lifetime incidence of deja vu with age, there is also an age-related decline in the frequency of deja vu among experients. A gradual increase in the cultural awareness of, and comfort with, deja vu may contribute to this age trend, and future surveys should require participants to define the term, as well as evaluate the personal and cultural acceptability of deja vu.

Another possible reason why older adults experience fewer incidents of deja vu is that they may be less sensitive to the qualities of their own cognitive experiences. That is, older adults are less accurate in identifying the sources of information (Brown, Jones, & Davis, 1995) and less likely to spontaneously use source information in making memory evaluations (Multhaup, 1995), thus making them less aware of the type of source memory mismatch that spontaneously leads to deja vu.

Finally, older adults tend to be more settled in their routine physical surroundings, making them less likely to encounter those new settings that could elicit deja vu experiences.