Chronicle of a deaf audiologist

Why walking through doorways makes you forget

It’s a common experience—entering a room, only to realize you’ve forgotten what you went there to do. It’s been documented in research studies, too. Memory is worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.

Did you know that the “doorway effect” is actually a good strategy to optimize memory?

Some forms of memory seem to be optimized to keep information ready-to-hand until its shelf life expires, and then purge that information in favour of new stuff. Walking through a doorway is a good time to purge your memory because whatever happened in the old room is likely to become less relevant now that you have changed rooms.

We can’t keep everything ready-to-hand, and most of the time this strategy functions beautifully.

It’s only when it doesn’t work for us, that we become aware of it.

 

 

Related post: Dementia and hearing loss

  • Photo credit:  © Alan Fortune

    Sandra Vandenhoff

    Dr. Sandra Vandenhoff is an audiologist with hearing loss, founder of HEARa, Hearing Rehabilitation teacher, and Canadian author, who does not remember saying on her first day of wearing hearing aids: "Mom, I can hear my shoelaces!"

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