Concept · Cognitive Bias: Memory biases and distortions
Jamais vu
Origin: Ribot, 1881
Biological Parallel
Repeated semantic satiation makes familiar words feel alien—excessive activation temporarily exhausts neural recognition patterns. Jamais vu is recognition fatigue: when you over-activate a memory trace through repetition, the familiarity signal temporarily fails, making known patterns feel novel. This reveals memory as active reconstruction: recognition isn't binary retrieval but dynamic pattern reactivation that can fatigue like any biological system.