Everything to know about the 'doorway effect'

Passing through doorways seems to have a profound effect on memory, says Dr. Curtis Cripe. For example, you go to the kitchen to get something from the cupboard, but as you pass through the doorway, you suddenly forget what you intended to do in the first place. Psychologists call this the doorway effect. Why this happens and what it tells about your memory, you'll find out in this article.

Studies have determined that doorways represent the boundary between one context to another. By context, Dr. Curtis Cripe notes, the studies could be suggesting rooms to which a person moves, passing through a doorway. The so-called boundary, in this context, helps segment thoughts and experience into separate events as though, in your mind, these are being partitioned for later use.

In some ways, these boundaries help define what could be relevant in one situation from what could be relevant in another. So, when you move from one room to another, there is a likelihood that the relevant information from a previous room may be lost, either replaced or flushed out by the relevant idea in the next one, says Dr. Curtis Cripe.

In the end, the doorway effect seems to tell about the way of remembering things, that there's more to it than what people are paying attention to when it actually happened, and of the efforts to keep it. Interestingly, Dr. Curtis Cripe suggests that the brain seems to optimize some forms of memory to keep information ready-to-hand when it expires and then shreds that information when a new one is ready.

Curtis Cripe, Ph.D., is the head of research and development at the NTL Group. He has extensive experience in neuroengineering with a diversified professional and academic background, including psychophysiology, psychology, and child neurodevelopment. For updates, subscribe to this page.