Jamais vu: Difference between revisions
Adeeljamil (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
m Robot: Automated text replacement (-{{SIB}} + & -{{EH}} + & -{{EJ}} + & -{{Editor Help}} + & -{{Editor Join}} +) |
||
(One intermediate revision by one other user not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{SI}} | {{SI}} | ||
{{CMG}} | {{CMG}} | ||
In [[psychology]], the term '''jamais vu''' (from the French language|French, meaning "never seen") is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. | In [[psychology]], the term '''jamais vu''' (from the French language|French, meaning "never seen") is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer. | ||
Line 34: | Line 32: | ||
*[[Capgras delusion]] (the delusion that a friend or relative is an impostor) | *[[Capgras delusion]] (the delusion that a friend or relative is an impostor) | ||
Line 40: | Line 37: | ||
[[Category:French words and phrases]] | [[Category:French words and phrases]] | ||
[[Category:Semiotics]] | [[Category:Semiotics]] | ||
[[cs:Jamais vu]] | [[cs:Jamais vu]] | ||
[[de:Jamais-vu-Erlebnis]] | [[de:Jamais-vu-Erlebnis]] |
Latest revision as of 16:36, 9 August 2012
WikiDoc Resources for Jamais vu |
Articles |
---|
Most recent articles on Jamais vu |
Media |
Evidence Based Medicine |
Clinical Trials |
Ongoing Trials on Jamais vu at Clinical Trials.gov Clinical Trials on Jamais vu at Google
|
Guidelines / Policies / Govt |
US National Guidelines Clearinghouse on Jamais vu
|
Books |
News |
Commentary |
Definitions |
Patient Resources / Community |
Patient resources on Jamais vu Discussion groups on Jamais vu Directions to Hospitals Treating Jamais vu Risk calculators and risk factors for Jamais vu
|
Healthcare Provider Resources |
Causes & Risk Factors for Jamais vu |
Continuing Medical Education (CME) |
International |
|
Business |
Experimental / Informatics |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
In psychology, the term jamais vu (from the French language|French, meaning "never seen") is used to describe any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer.
Psychology
Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before.
Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily doesn't recognize a word, person, or place that he/she already knows.[1]
The phenomenon is often grouped with déjà vu and presque vu (together, the three are frequently referred to as "The Vus").
Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of amnesia and epilepsy. With seizures, jamais vu can surface as an aura due to a partial seizure disorder that originates from the temporal lobe of the brain. It also can occur as a migraine aura. [2]
The TimesOnline reports:
- Chris Moulin, of Leeds University, asked 92 volunteers to write out "door" 30 times in 60 seconds. At the International Conference on Memory in Sydney last week he reported that 68 per cent of his guinea pigs 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. [3]
Linguistics
From a linguistic perspective, the phenomenon that a word after frequent repetition seems to lose its meaning is connected with the very nature of words. A word as a unit of language has three characteristics:
- It has form, i.e. it is shaped out of sounds or, in the case of written language, out of letters (characters).
- It has function, which (among other things) means that it operates in a meaningful sentence.
- It has meaning, which implies that it refers to a certain unit of thought (a concept or an idea) within a context.
However, when a word is repeated over and over again, it is in fact only the form which is repeated. There is no sentence, so the function of the word is eliminated. Its meaning, too, is effectively eliminated, because there is no context. A few repetitions will leave the language user's memory and expectation intact: he remembers the meaning and expects a meaningful reference. Continued repetition, however, will more and more foreground the word form to the exclusion of function and meaning, until the word literally "makes no sense". It is not the word that is being repeated, but only one of its aspects: the word form.
Related phenomena
- Déjà vu: remembering having seen something before. In French, this literally means 'already seen', though in usage it is basically equivalent to déjà vécu.
- Presque vu: almost, but not quite, remembering something. This is the "on the tip of my tongue" feeling. (Cf. the article on Déjà vu.)
See also
- Capgras delusion (the delusion that a friend or relative is an impostor)