Cognitive neuroscientist Dr Christian Jarrett explains how our memories are vulnerable to the \u2018doorway effect\u2019. <\/p>
Fear not, you\u2019re far from the only one to have had this rather unsettling experience.<\/p>\n
Since\u00a02006, psychologists at the University of Notre Dame in\u00a0Indiana\u00a0have been investigating what\u2019s become known as the \u2018doorway effect<\/a>\u2019. In one study they used a virtual reality setup to show that their volunteers\u2019 memory of items in a room was diminished\u00a0once\u00a0they walked through a doorway into another room.<\/p>\n The\u00a0researchers\u00a0propose a three-part explanation: our memories are divided into episodes; we find it trickier to recall information from earlier episodes; and, critically, when we walk through a doorway, it creates a new episode or \u2018event boundary\u2019 (thus making it more difficult to recall our purpose, which was stored in the previous memory episode).<\/p>\n These results have implied there\u2019s something almost magical about the effects of doorways on our brains. However, a team at the University of Queensland painted a more nuanced picture. They found<\/a> that passing through doorways that joined identical rooms mostly didn\u2019t impact memory \u2013 perhaps because there wasn\u2019t enough of a changed context to create a significant event boundary. It was only when these researchers distracted their volunteers with a simultaneous secondary task that the doorways between identical rooms affected memory.<\/p>\n The Queensland team said this chimes with everyday experience in that it\u2019s mostly when we\u2019re distracted, with our mind on other things, that we\u2019re inclined to arrive in a room and forget what we came for. It also suggests the doorway effect is more likely to occur when there is a significant change in context \u2013\u00a0for instance, if you leave your\u00a0living room\u00a0for the garden.<\/p>\n The new results also point to a potential cure \u2013 try to stay focused on your purpose when you pass through a doorway on an errand (failing that, you could always make a note on the back of your hand).<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n