Akira O'Connor

Who they are

The work of Akira O'Connor reaches this site through the papers listed below. On this site the name is tied to Memory Conflict Account of Déjà Vu, Déjà Vu.

Key papers

Urquhart, J. A., Sivakumaran, M. H., Macfarlane, J. A., & O'Connor, A. R. (2018). fMRI evidence supporting the role of memory conflict in the déjà vu experience. Memory, 29(7), 921-932. What it reports: A word-list task paired false familiarity with cues showing that it was mistaken. Sixteen of 21 participants reported déjà vu, and imaging showed activity in regions linked to conflict.

Aitken, C. B. A., Jentzsch, I., & O'Connor, A. R. (2023). Towards a conflict account of déjà vu: The role of memory errors and memory expectation conflict in the experience of déjà vu. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 155, 105467. What it reports: Proposes that déjà vu is a conflict between a feeling of familiarity and a concurrent judgment of novelty, and links the decline of déjà vu with age to the decline of conflict monitoring after young adulthood.

Key ideas

Memory Conflict Account of Déjà Vu: The proposal that déjà vu is a conflict between a feeling of familiarity and a concurrent judgment of novelty.

Déjà Vu: The feeling that a present moment has already been lived, held beside the knowledge that it has not.

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