ABSTRACT
Déjà vu is the experience of feeling as if the current situation has been experienced before while knowing that the situation is actually unique and new. Though scholars have speculated on the nature of déjà vu for centuries, it largely stayed out of the realm of science until quite recently. Brown’s (2003a) review article on survey research of the phenomenon up to that point provided a turning point in cognitive psychology regarding the study of déjà vu. Following Brown’s (2004) book The Déjà vu Experience, which called upon cognitive psychologists to begin using established laboratory paradigms to probe the potential mechanisms responsible for déjà vu, a number of cognitive psychology research paradigms began to be applied to the study of déjà vu. This chapter reviews the empirical studies that investigated déjà vu, the role that Brown’s (2003a, 2004) seminal works played in paving the way for these studies to take hold, what has been learned from these studies, and what remains to be studied in terms of future directions.
