Exposé activates randomly - not trackpad, mouse, or simple preference

Hi all,
I'm experiencing an interesting glitch with exposé triggering randomly. During normal Macbook use, the expose window randomly pops up, may "jitter", and eventually goes away. During the glitch, I can click the applications in the expose window, which will bring up the app for a moment, but usually expose comes right back (creating a temporary zoom in / zoom out jitter from the back-and-forth). This can occur for a few seconds before normal operations resume.
I've done a fairly thorough search of the forums and the almighty interwebs with Google, but no luck yet with any solutions. Help would be super appreciated since I'd prefer not to do a clean install! Here are some important details about my system and the troubleshooting I've already done:
My system Macbook (from 2009) is running OS 10.6.8. Everything is up-to-date to the best of my knowledge.
As a first obvious step, I have disabled all gestures from the expose and trackpad preferences. Right now, only F3, which is hardwired to expose, should trigger it (see this post).
Expose works normally when I hit F3
I have tried using a USB mouse, but the problem still occurs (with the "ignore trackpad when mouse connected" option enabled).
The glitch can occur seemingly anytime. I can be typing or using the trackpad or even not touching the computer at all (e.g., watching a video on Netflix).
There does not appear to be any certain program or activity which triggers the glitch. Most of my computer use involves web surfing, e-mails, writing documents, and other light use.
No extra applications are starting up with login (i.e., I double-checked the relevant page on my user preferences, like this).
And for reference, here are two more threads of interest:
One post recommended disabling a feature in Google Drive, but I do not have Google Drive desktop installed.
Here is a thread which sounds very similar to my problem, but the only response directs the user to post in the hardware forum. I couldn't find another thread from the original poster though.
I've been struggling with this for awhile now and it can be very frustrating. Any help is MUCH appreciated! I've tried to do my homework, but I'm at a dead end. Please let me know if I can provide more information or conduct any experiments. And many apologies if I've missed anything.
Thanks so much!
-Joanna

Also, I don't believe this is a "cursor jump" issue. I'm working on get a short video recording of the gltich, but it can be tricky to capture it.

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