How doorways can affect your memory

Walking through doorways causes forgetting, new research shows

We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find.

New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

The study was published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Conducting three experiments in both real and virtual environments, Radvansky’s subjects – all college students – performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.

In the first experiment, subjects used a virtual environment and moved from one room to another, selecting an object on a table and exchanging it for an object at a different table. They did the same thing while simply moving across a room but not crossing through a doorway.

Radvansky found that the subjects forgot more after walking through a doorway compared to moving the same distance across a room, suggesting that the doorway or “event boundary” impedes one’s ability to retrieve thoughts or decisions made in a different room.

The second experiment in a real-world setting required subjects to conceal in boxes the objects chosen from the table and move either across a room or travel the same distance and walk through a doorway. The results in the real-world environment replicated those in the virtual world: walking through a doorway diminished subjects’ memories.

The final experiment was designed to test whether doorways actually served as event boundaries or if one’s ability to remember is linked to the environment in which a decision – in this case, the selection of an object – was created. Previous research has shown that environmental factors affect memory and that information learned in one environment is retrieved better when the retrieval occurs in the same context. Subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. The results showed no improvements in memory, suggesting that the act of passing through a doorway serves as a way the mind files away memories.

Accept the Change

Change is good or not good, Accept it quickly. It is good for you.

I don't feel myself as a opposition of accepting the change. but recently I noticed, I am not very good in that also.
Everywhere, everyone is now using smartphone. but I was not until now.
I used to have a simple Nokia phone, it was smart phone but I didn't use its smart features. Because it was a cheap phone and those smart features does not work in that phone as should be.

Well, I had all other smart devices in daily use, like smart TV, iPad, smart watch etc but not the phone which i now feel is the most important thing.
Recently, I noticed a big fall of some great companies just because they did not "Accepted the Change". Those companies were keep on following their own old ideas with this moto:

We are a successful company since N number of years. And we earn this success with our own ideas. Why should we change that now.

They forgot that the change is required nowadays to keep on running.
Now, I tell you why I was not using any smart phone before. Because I like small screen and Nokia phone. Nokia did not launch any successful smart phone with small screen that's why I was not iPhone or any other smart phone. All of them were coming with big screens and I like small ones.
When I noticed that, iPhone 5 screen was smaller than iPhone 6 then I feel Its a Change in peoples choice that's why all the successful smart phones are coming in big screens. So ...
The very next day I had iPhone 6s in my hand.



Well, Change is always good in our lives. It makes us happy. If we accept the change quickly we don't sob for long on the sudden unhappy thing happen with us

Changes can be hard but necessary, and a change of scenery can re-ignite your interest and motivation.

Accept the things you cannot change; have the courage to change the things which you can; and have the wisdom to know the difference. Changes can be hard but necessary, and a change of scenery can re-ignite your interest and motivation.

Understand that people change and sometimes they are not compatible with our lives. We just have to learn to Accept the Change and move on.

The biggest setbacks I commonly see are when people are starring in the face of change. Whether it’s unexpected or they just run out of options, when you force change on someone their whole turns upside down.
The biggest fear of change is usually not knowing what will happen next. Unsettling routines, changing locations and making someone expand beyond their known world spells disaster for many.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that making the change will be the best for us moving forward. The simple key is silencing the “what ifs” and making it happen.
The are no quick tips or twelve steps. Say, yes! Then quickly put action to what you’ve been avoiding.
Why fight it? It’s time to make life happen!

A good read on this topic Who Moved My Cheese?