Jamais vu

In psychology, jamais vu (/ˌʒæmeɪ ˈvuː/ ZHAM-ay VOO, US: /ˌʒɑːm-/ ZHAHM-, French: [ʒamɛ vy]), a French borrowing meaning "never seen", is the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that one recognizes in some fashion, but that nonetheless seems novel and unfamiliar.

Overview

The opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu describes an eerie sense where the observer feels like something is unfamiliar to them when they are sure it should be familiar to them. Jamais vu can be associated with certain types of aphasia, amnesia, and epilepsy.

Jamais vu is most commonly experienced when a person momentarily does not recognise a word or, less commonly, a person or place, that they know. This can be achieved by anyone by repeatedly writing or saying a specific word out loud. After a few seconds one will often, despite knowing that it is a real word, feel as if "there's no way it is an actual word".

The phenomenon is often grouped with déjà vu and presque vu (tip of the tongue, literally "almost seen").

Theoretically, a jamais vu feeling in a sufferer of a delirious disorder or intoxication could result in a delirious explanation of it, such as in Capgras delusion, in which the patient takes a person they know for a false double or impostor. If the impostor is the sufferer themselves, the clinical setting would be the same as the one described as depersonalization; hence, jamais vus of oneself, or of the very "reality of reality", are termed depersonalization and derealization, respectively.

Experiment

A study by Chris Moulin of Leeds University asked 92 volunteers to write out "door" 30 times in 60 seconds. In July 2006 at the 4th International Conference on Memory in Sydney he reported that 68 percent of volunteers showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that "door" was a real word. Dr Moulin believes that a similar brain fatigue underlies a phenomenon observed in some schizophrenia patients: that a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor. Dr Moulin suggests they could be suffering from chronic jamais vu.

Causes

Jamais vu can be caused by epileptic seizures.

Related phenomena

• Déjà vu: having the strong sensation that an event or experience being experienced, has already been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not. In French, this means 'already seen'.
• Tip of the tongue: almost, but not quite, remembering something.

See also

• Capgras delusion (the delusion that a friend or relative is an impostor)
• Cryptomnesia
• Depersonalization disorder
• Derealization
• Mandela effect
• Semantic satiation
• Uncanny

Further reading

• Sno, Herman N. (2000). "Déjà vu and jamais vu". In Berrios, German E.; Hodges, John R. (eds.). Memory Disorders in Psychiatric Practice. Cambridge University Press. pp. 338–347. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511530197.016. ISBN 978-0-521-57671-0.
• Cheng, Lionel Tim-Ee; Chan, Lai Peng; Tan, Ban Hock; Chen, Robert Chun; Tay, Kiang Hiong; Ling, Moi Lin; Tan, Bien Soo (June 2020). "Déjà Vu or Jamais Vu? How the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Experience Influenced a Singapore Radiology Department's Response to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic". American Journal of Roentgenology. 214 (6): 1206–1210. doi:10.2214/AJR.20.22927. PMID 32130047. S2CID 212417312.
• Burwell, Rebecca D; Templer, Victoria L (September 2017). "Jamais vu all over again". Nature Neuroscience. 20 (9): 1194–1196. doi:10.1038/nn.4625. PMC 6101242. PMID 28849788.
• Moulin, Chris J. A.; Bell, Nicole; Turunen, Merita; Baharin, Arina; O’Connor, Akira R. (9 August 2021). "The the the the induction of jamais vu in the laboratory: word alienation and semantic satiation". Memory. 29 (7): 933–942. doi:10.1080/09658211.2020.1727519. hdl:10023/21466. PMID 32079491. S2CID 211231684.
• "Jamais Vu". The Deja Vu Experience. 2004. pp. 115–124. doi:10.4324/9780203485446-13. ISBN 978-0-203-48544-6.
• Struck, Terry H. (June 2002). "Jamais vu episodes in relationship to baclofen treatment: A case report". Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 83 (6): 846–849. doi:10.1053/apmr.2002.32828. PMID 12048665.
• Marcial, Dennis (9 September 2016). "Jamais Vu". The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal. 1 (2).
• Ullian, John A.; Matson, Christine C. (March 2001). "The 'Jamais-vu Phenomenon' in Medical Education". Academic Medicine. 76 (3): 217. doi:10.1097/00001888-200103000-00004. PMID 11242567.