Psychology Undusted: The Doorway Effect

We all know that experience of walking into a room with a purpose and immediately forgetting why we went in there. Don’t worry, you’re not alone, and it’s not a sign of senility or even a question of age: It’s a function of our working memory that glitches by going through a doorway – as simple as that.

Our brains process a lot that we don’t even think about: We breathe without a thought, we walk in a straight line usually, we can walk with relatively good balance (unless there’s something else interfering, like alcohol or an ear infection), and we can think about a myriad of other things while walking, sitting, or even laying down – all thanks to the grey matter inside our skulls. We can create something physical or something using words or music, and we can differentiate between events of the past, present, and the future.

But sometimes our brains chuck out things it considers irrelevant or no longer required; our working memory is constantly adjusting to the new circumstances we find ourselves in in any given moment, so it creates what are known as “event boundaries” – and one common boundary in our physical world is a doorway. We can also have virtual doorways: when we move from one circumstance to the next, the events are segmented or “compartmentalized” in our brains; this is known as the “location updating effect”, or simply, “the doorway effect”. You may have wanted to get an ingredient for dinner from your pantry; but when you walk through that doorway, your brain mistakes the temporary requirement as no longer applicable and moves on to the next circumstance facing you. That leaves you standing there with a blank expression, wondering why you’re there.

In this age of relentless bombardment of marketing, of internet, or of being able to face-time or Skype or WhatsApp with friends and family in any time zone at the touch of a screen, it’s no wonder our brains sometimes feel overloaded and chuck out something we actually needed to remember just a bit longer. But there’s a trick to remembering what you forgot: Just walk back through the doorway into the room you had the thought in the first place, and it should trigger that forgotten purpose.

PERSONAL UPDATE:

For those of you wondering how we are doing: My husband starts chemo this week; it’s been an up-and-down ride, and planning further ahead than a day has been a waste of time, so we’re taking one day at a time. After a week in the hospital with an infection and a round of antibiotics that also messed with his stomach and digestion, he’s beginning to feel a bit better, and is gaining a bit of weight again. We have holidays over the next few weeks, so when he’s feeling up to doing something, we can take day trips out. Today, we drove to a nearby nature reserve and enjoyed watching nesting storks and large prey birds, as well as Highland cattle. we’re taking life very slowly right now. Thank you for your prayers and well wishes!