Now where have you read this before?

French psychic researcher, Emile Blorac, coined the term deja vu -- French for 'already seen' -- to describe the experience of feeling that one has witnessed a new situation previously.

The 19th century French psychic researcher, Emile Blorac, coined the term déjà vu -- French for ‘already seen’ -- to describe the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. But then, you probably think that you already know that. What might not sound that familiar to you is the fact that a few boffins at the University of Leeds have found a ‘key insight’ (read: no, you didn’t know this before even if you get the vague feeling that you did) into the mechanics of paramnesia (the Latin way of saying the French term). Essentially, the researchers replicated déjà vu in the lab. The human brain, normally a smart organ, when presented with a scene, runs through two processes. The first one checks whether it has seen or experienced the thing before. If it has, then the second process kicks into life -- alerting the brain’s proprietor that it is indeed a familiar thing. These two processes occur in separate parts of the brain. Sometimes, however, the second process is started erroneously -- like a mechanical fly swatter mistakenly swatting non-existent flies -- leading to the mistaken notion that one has experienced something before even though one hasn’t.

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In the lab, a group of 18 volunteers were shown a set of 24 words. Then the volunteers were hypnotised. While in their trance, they were told that when they saw a word in a red box, it would feel familiar but that they wouldn’t be sure when they had seen it before. Words in green boxes would be identified as belonging to the original list of the 24. Once the volunteers snapped out of their trance, they were shown another set of 24 words, some from the original set, others that were new. The words were all framed in various colours. Of the total number of guinea pigs, 10 reported feeling ‘odd’ when they saw words that were new and framed in red. Five of this lot said the sensation was like déjà vu. This, according to the researchers, demonstrates that the two processes can be separated in lab conditions. And so? So, if the boffin-world is to be trusted, this could have major implications for our understanding of how human memory works.