"Doorway Effect": why we forget why we came
Isn't it a familiar situation: getting up from the chair and confidently passing into the next room for some specific purpose, we, crossing its threshold, suddenly realize that we completely forgot, and why did we actually go there? The reason for this curious phenomenon lies in the peculiarities of the work of the mechanisms of our memory. Below we describe the phenomenon of the "Doorway Effect" (Doorway Effect).
In fact, association with a doorway is only a special case of a more general phenomenon that manifests itself in our life in a variety of situations. It is enough to remember how opening the refrigerator, we forget that, in fact, we need from it. Or, for example, a very common situation, when listening to the interlocutor, you are forced to leave your question for later, waiting for your opponent to finish his monologue. And when, finally, there is an opportunity to comment on what was said, you are surprised and annoyed to discover that you have forgotten everything you wanted to say. Sometimes in such situations it is possible to restore the chain, and sometimes any attempts are broken against an insurmountable obstacle. What happens at such a moment?
It turns out that our perception simultaneously captures what is happening around at different levels. As in the parable of the three builders of one brigade, one of which, in his opinion, is engaged in laying one brick on another, the second builds a wall, and the third creates a temple. In fact, they all do one and the other at the same time. And our attention is able to switch between different levels of perception, but at each separate moment of time it is only on one of them. In the language of the parable, we are focused on how we lay the next brick, either we represent the process in its sequence, or we think about the ultimate goal of the work being done. If we don’t have a mastered brickwork skill, then we are fully focused on the specific action. By analogy, a novice driver who drives a car badly thinks hard about when to switch speed or press a pedal, as opposed to a professional who can talk with a passenger quite comfortably or appreciate the peculiarities of local sights.
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The described feature of our perception of reality is most directly related to the “doorway effect” that occurs at a time when our attention wanders between different levels of perception, often lingering not where we needed it quite recently. For example, with the interlocutor above. You intend to object your opponent and your attention is completely consumed by this goal, but you have to put up with the fact that the interlocutor must be given an agreement. At the moment of waiting, when you begin to search hard for a way to break into the conversation, as the operational task has changed, attention shifts to another level. When the long-awaited opportunity to speak, finally, is, you find that there is already nothing to say, attention to the desired wave can no longer be switched.
A similar mechanism works when you forget why you entered the room. For example, you need to take the keys in the far room of your house to go to the store opposite. The “take the keys” level changes to the “reach the bedroom” level, and on the way you still notice a cup left by someone the day before, which you decide to take to the kitchen. The fact that at this moment your attention switches from one plan to another several times, you do not notice, but the more such switchings took place on the way to the bedroom, the more likely it is that when you reach it you will ask yourself: why, actually went here?
Finding the answer to this question in such situations can be helped by figurative unwinding of an imaginary “film” in the reverse order, when you mentally leave the bedroom and go back in the same way.
The scientific term “doorway effect” was introduced by US psychologist Gabriel A. Radvansky in 2011, and his experiments were the reason. The task of the participants was to move between the rooms of the virtual house created by Rodwan, and at the same time perform various tasks for memorization. The experiment unequivocally confirmed: a person more often forgets what he saw or heard after passing through a doorway. At the same time, he could walk the same distance through a large room and keep the goal in mind, but as soon as he moved from room to room, the information was “erased”. A similar effect was confirmed in the second experiment, already conducted in a real house. The scientist came to the conclusion that the doorway in this case plays the role of the next informational episode, carrying a serious additional burden for our memory, complicating attempts to recall the initial message.
Knowing how the “doorway effect” works, we can avoid similar problems in the future. And when faced with a problem, it is enough to walk mentally or physically through the chapters of your memory in the reverse order until the desired memory is restored.
Tom Stafford bbc.com
That's all, with you there was a simple service for choosing sophisticated Dronk.Ru equipment. Do not forget to subscribe to our blog , there will be many more interesting ...
In fact, association with a doorway is only a special case of a more general phenomenon that manifests itself in our life in a variety of situations. It is enough to remember how opening the refrigerator, we forget that, in fact, we need from it. Or, for example, a very common situation, when listening to the interlocutor, you are forced to leave your question for later, waiting for your opponent to finish his monologue. And when, finally, there is an opportunity to comment on what was said, you are surprised and annoyed to discover that you have forgotten everything you wanted to say. Sometimes in such situations it is possible to restore the chain, and sometimes any attempts are broken against an insurmountable obstacle. What happens at such a moment?
It turns out that our perception simultaneously captures what is happening around at different levels. As in the parable of the three builders of one brigade, one of which, in his opinion, is engaged in laying one brick on another, the second builds a wall, and the third creates a temple. In fact, they all do one and the other at the same time. And our attention is able to switch between different levels of perception, but at each separate moment of time it is only on one of them. In the language of the parable, we are focused on how we lay the next brick, either we represent the process in its sequence, or we think about the ultimate goal of the work being done. If we don’t have a mastered brickwork skill, then we are fully focused on the specific action. By analogy, a novice driver who drives a car badly thinks hard about when to switch speed or press a pedal, as opposed to a professional who can talk with a passenger quite comfortably or appreciate the peculiarities of local sights.
')
The described feature of our perception of reality is most directly related to the “doorway effect” that occurs at a time when our attention wanders between different levels of perception, often lingering not where we needed it quite recently. For example, with the interlocutor above. You intend to object your opponent and your attention is completely consumed by this goal, but you have to put up with the fact that the interlocutor must be given an agreement. At the moment of waiting, when you begin to search hard for a way to break into the conversation, as the operational task has changed, attention shifts to another level. When the long-awaited opportunity to speak, finally, is, you find that there is already nothing to say, attention to the desired wave can no longer be switched.
A similar mechanism works when you forget why you entered the room. For example, you need to take the keys in the far room of your house to go to the store opposite. The “take the keys” level changes to the “reach the bedroom” level, and on the way you still notice a cup left by someone the day before, which you decide to take to the kitchen. The fact that at this moment your attention switches from one plan to another several times, you do not notice, but the more such switchings took place on the way to the bedroom, the more likely it is that when you reach it you will ask yourself: why, actually went here?
Finding the answer to this question in such situations can be helped by figurative unwinding of an imaginary “film” in the reverse order, when you mentally leave the bedroom and go back in the same way.
The scientific term “doorway effect” was introduced by US psychologist Gabriel A. Radvansky in 2011, and his experiments were the reason. The task of the participants was to move between the rooms of the virtual house created by Rodwan, and at the same time perform various tasks for memorization. The experiment unequivocally confirmed: a person more often forgets what he saw or heard after passing through a doorway. At the same time, he could walk the same distance through a large room and keep the goal in mind, but as soon as he moved from room to room, the information was “erased”. A similar effect was confirmed in the second experiment, already conducted in a real house. The scientist came to the conclusion that the doorway in this case plays the role of the next informational episode, carrying a serious additional burden for our memory, complicating attempts to recall the initial message.
Knowing how the “doorway effect” works, we can avoid similar problems in the future. And when faced with a problem, it is enough to walk mentally or physically through the chapters of your memory in the reverse order until the desired memory is restored.
Tom Stafford bbc.com
That's all, with you there was a simple service for choosing sophisticated Dronk.Ru equipment. Do not forget to subscribe to our blog , there will be many more interesting ...
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/372341/
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