Final answer:
The eerie feeling of having been somewhere before is known as déjà vu. It is a phenomenon where a person feels an inexplicable sense of familiarity in a new situation. This is not to be confused with state dependency, encoding failure, or priming.
Step-by-step explanation:
The eerie feeling of having been somewhere before is an example of déjà vu. This phenomenon is not state dependency, encoding failure, or priming. Déjà vu is a French term translating to "already seen" and refers to the sensation that one has lived through the present situation before. Though the exact cause of déjà vu is not fully understood, it is thought to be related to a temporary glitch in the brain's processing of experiences, which leads to the feeling of familiarity with a new experience.
Déjà vu is quite common and can occur in healthy individuals as well as in association with certain medical conditions. It is an intriguing aspect of our cognitive experience and memory, but it does not indicate any issues with capturing or retrieving memories, as might be suggested by encoding failure or state dependency. Priming is a process where exposure to one stimulus influences a response to another stimulus, which is not directly related to the sensation of déjà vu.