In deja vu, a phenomenological impression of familiarity for the current visual environment is experienced with a sense that it should in fact not feel familiar. The fleeting nature of this phenomenon in daily life, and the difficulty in developing experimental paradigms to elicit it, has hindered progress in understanding deja vu. Some…

Recognition memory involves knowing an item was learned (familiarity) and remembering contextual details about the prior learning episode (recollection). We tested three competing hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in recollection and familiarity. It mediates either recollection or familiarity, or serves both processes. We further tested…