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Disappointingly, D j Vu not a Glitch in the Matrix

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Ed. note: this blog was originally posted at Sleights of Mind.

“Deja-Vu x”, By Doris Redrupp: http://smillakatz.blogspot.com/2011/01/deja-vu.html

I hate to break it to all you Keanu Reeves fans out there, but a study from Colorado State University suggests that déjà vu is not what “happens when they change something” in the Matrix. Associate Professor of Psychology Anne Cleary used virtual reality to evoke déjà vu in the lab. The research, published in June in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, showed that déjà vu tended to occur when people viewed a virtual scene with a similar layout to a previously seen scene, but failed to recall the former scene.

(A) The eMagin z800 3D head-mounted display (HMD); head-tracking enables immersive viewing of each scene through the turning of one’s head to look around and 3D presentation allows for depth perception. (B) Sample 2D screenshots of configurally similar scenes (study on left; test on right). Though screenshots are 2D, the actual scenes were presented in stereographic 3D through the HMD shown in A; each illustration represents only a portion of the entire scene, as each could be viewed immersively by turning one’s head or body to look left, right, up or down.

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Anne Cleary describes her research in a short video, and Michio Kaku discusses the alternative but unlikely possibility of déjà vu in the multiverse.

Have you experienced déjà vu?

Have you experienced déjà vu?

 

Susana Martinez-Conde is a professor of ophthalmology, neurology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is author of the Prisma Prize–winning Sleights of Mind, along with Stephen Macknik and Sandra Blakeslee, and of Champions of Illusion, along with Stephen Macknik.

More by Susana Martinez-Conde