Illusion of Truth Effect The Illusion of Truth Effect says that we base whether things are true or not

on how often we hear the information. A good example of this is when a lot of peop le were convinced that President Obama is a Muslim, despite much evidence to the contrary. A poll showed that nearly 20 percent of people believed that he was a Muslim, and all because they heard it so many times. Deja Vu Deja vu is a French term that means "already seen" and is used to describe the s ensation that we have already experienced an event before, even though we are ce rtain this is the first time it has occured. For example, you could travel to a foreign country and go to a restaurant there and feel certain that you have been there before, even though this is your first time leaving the United States. This is a very common phenomena and almost 70 p ercent of the population reports experiencing it at least once, though it is mor e common in people aged 15 to 25. Scientists are still uncertain as to what exactly causes deja vu, but there are some theories, such as wish fulfillment, past life experience, a brain glitch or remembering a dream. Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon Have you ever heard a new piece of new information, such as a new word, and then you can't seem to stop hearing it everywhere? Then you've experienced the Baade r-Meinhof Phenomenon. The phenomenon occurs because the brain is very good at putting together pattern s. Just because we are now seeing this word everywhere doesn't mean we never saw it before; but because we didn't know what it meant, our mind discarded it as m eaningless information. Now that the brain just learned what the word means, it will be looking for the word again. Now that you know what Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is, there is a good chance you might hear about it again in the near future! The Positivity Effect The Positivity Effect basically says that we remember happy memories better than we remember sad ones. Of course, this isn't always 100% the case. It gets a lit tle more tricky with people who have conditions like depression. Our moods also affect our memory in other ways. For instance, we are more likely to remember an event if we are in the same mood now as we were when the memory was made. Paredoilia Paredoilia, more commonly known as "matrixing," is what gives us the ability to see shapes in clouds. It is also what made people think they saw a face on Mars when it was just an ordinary rock formation. What is happening is our brain is t rying to make sense out of random information when there might not be any sense to be made. Jamais Vu Jamais vu is French for "never seen." It describes a situation that is basically

the opposite of deja vu -- something that should be familiar isn't. You may hav e experienced this if you have said a common word too many times in a row and it eventually didn't even seem like a real word anymore. This suggests that the ph enomenon may be a symptom of brain fatigue.