Imagine walking through a door and just standing there, all thoughts of the original task lost in the depths of your brain. Experiencing memory loss after changing rooms is a psychological phenomenon known as the ‘doorway effect’ or the ‘location updating effect’. The doorway effect is a type of short-term memory loss that occurs when a person walks through a door and into a new room, or changes their environment, and forgets the original task.
A person is more likely to experience the ‘doorway effect’ due to the amount of attention that is being paid to the task at hand and how important it is according to the brain. The ‘location updating effect’ results in a change in a person’s mental and physical environment. The reason why people experience the ‘doorway effect’ is unknown however many scientists believe that the brain categorizes a thought as complete when it passes through a door. Because the task is thought to be completed the information is discarded because it is no longer needed. The official relation between memories and the environment is unknown, however, BBC News says, “The Doorway Effect occurs when our attention moves between levels, and it reflects the reliance of our memories – even memories for what we were about to do – on the environment we’re in.”
Gabriel Radvansky, a psychology professor at Notre Dame University, conducted three experiments to study the ‘doorway effect’ with his students working as his subjects. The first experiment was in a virtual environment where the subjects were tasked to move from one room to another while holding an object. Then, the subjects would transition into a new room and pick up another object. The experiment provided evidence that illustrated that the subjects were more likely to forget what they were tasked with when walking through a doorway compared to just walking across the room.
The second experiment was similar to the first, but instead of taking place online, the experiment was conducted in person. The results of the experiment mirrored that of the first experiment.
The third experiment tested what affected memory, whether it was doorways or if it was the environment in which the decision was made that affected the results. Radvansky says that “Subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. The results showed no improvements in memory, suggesting that the act of passing through a doorway serves as a way the mind files away memories.”
A separate study done by Dr. Jessica Mcfadyen at the University College of London has data that shows that it is not only the doorways that cause this lapse in memory but also the environment that is attached to the memory of the decision. In her report she says, “It’s not only doorways. Our brain engages in ‘event segmentation’ in all facets of life, whether it’s in physical space or in a more abstract sense.”
There is truly no way to avoid the effects of the ‘doorway effect’. The constant train of thoughts makes it easy to lose focus. Doorways and environments have a way of enchanting a person’s brain to associate a decision or memory with a room. When tackling an important task, remember to focus on that task and only that task.
