Forgetting Your Goal When Moving Rooms Or The Doorway Effect, Ever Experienced?

Illustration of the cause of the doorway effect (Pexels/Denniz Futalan)

JAKARTA – Have you ever forgotten to do something that was originally planned, but went blank when moving rooms? This condition is called the doorway effect which has been studied by psychologist Oliver Baumann from Bond University in Australia.

Reported by Science Alert, Tuesday, June 22, in a new study scientists say the effect of location updates can be experienced when our brains are busy. This condition does not have a major effect but has been investigated in a number of studies.

In a series of experiments in virtual reality, 74 volunteers were asked to move through a computer-generated three-dimensional space. They were asked to remember certain objects from the previous room when they moved rooms.

"Initially we couldn't find the doorway effect at all, so we thought maybe people's memory is too good and can remember everything," Baumann said.

In the second experiment, the research team made it more difficult and had volunteers perform a countdown task while moving to load working memory.

In this experiment forgetfulness occurred because too much to remember made volunteers more susceptible to the threshold effect.

"In other words, the threshold effect only occurs if we are cognitively vulnerable," Baumann explained in more detail.

In the next experiment, volunteers were asked to walk down a partitioned corridor, or to watch others perform the same routine while completing a memory-related task. The researchers reported that this third experiment did not show a doorway effect.

The researchers then performed an analysis of the data reports of three experiments the volunteers had experienced. What causes forgetting or deletion of memory is not the door but the changing landscape.

The changing landscape indicates that our mind is ready to accept something new.

“This can also be experienced when around department stores. Riding the elevator between retail levels probably won't affect our memory. But once moving into the parking lot, it might cause us to forget something we need to buy,” Baumann gives a common example.

The burden of thought also plays a role in causing the doorway effect. Researchers suggest that everyone needs to know how to manage or reduce the doorway effect in the future. If you don't want anything to be missed, the recommendation is to try to stay in the room until the task is complete.