Doorway effect

The doorway effect is an unusual occurrence that happens in the brain. This effect usually happens due to short-term memory loss while going through a door.^[1] Humans tend to forget recent information once crossing a boundary and often forget what they are thinking or planning to do after entering a different room.^[2]^[3]

Research says that this happens in both real life boundaries (ex: moving into a different room using a door) and imaginary/virtual boundaries (ex: switching desktop windows using the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut on Windows or the Cmd+Tab keyboard shortcut on MacOS).^[2]

References

↑ Radvansky, Gabriel A.; Tamplin, Andrea K.; Krawietz, Sabine A. (2010-12-01). "Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Environmental integration". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 17 (6): 900–904. doi:10.3758/PBR.17.6.900. ISSN 1531-5320.
1 2 McFadyen, Jessica; Nolan, Christopher; Pinocy, Ellen; Buteri, David; Baumann, Oliver (2021-03-08). "Doorways do not always cause forgetting: a multimodal investigation". BMC Psychology. 9 (1): 41. doi:10.1186/s40359-021-00536-3. ISSN 2050-7283. PMC 7938580. PMID 33685514.
↑ Stafford, Tom. "Why does walking through doorways make us forget?". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2022-02-13.

[1] Radvansky, Gabriel A.; Tamplin, Andrea K.; Krawietz, Sabine A. (2010-12-01). "Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Environmental integration". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 17 (6): 900–904. doi:10.3758/PBR.17.6.900. ISSN 1531-5320.

[multimodal2-2] 1 2 McFadyen, Jessica; Nolan, Christopher; Pinocy, Ellen; Buteri, David; Baumann, Oliver (2021-03-08). "Doorways do not always cause forgetting: a multimodal investigation". BMC Psychology. 9 (1): 41. doi:10.1186/s40359-021-00536-3. ISSN 2050-7283. PMC 7938580. PMID 33685514.

[3] Stafford, Tom. "Why does walking through doorways make us forget?". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2022-02-13.

[1]

[2]

[3]