“Why Stepping Through a Door Could Erase Your Memory: Unraveling the Mystery of the ‘Doorway Effect'”

Have you ever briskly entered a room only to emerge a few seconds later in a haze, wondering what on earth you were doing there? If this has happened to you, congratulations—you are not alone! As it turns out, that bewildering experience is a phenomenon known as the “doorway effect.” According to cognitive neuroscientist and science writer Christian Jarrett, this quirky lapse in memory is not just common; it’s completely normal. The brain, it seems, has a funny way of compartmentalizing experiences based on our surroundings, and crossing a threshold acts like a reset button. In his enlightening piece for BBC’s Science Focus, Jarrett delves into this mind-boggling effect, reassuring us that the confusion felt while shuffling through doorways is part of our brain’s attempt to make sense of the world. Curious to learn about the science behind this phenomenon and ways to combat it? Join me on this journey into the curious workings of our minds! LEARN MORE.

The horrible sensation you get when you completely forget why you walked into a room has finally been explained.

And don’t worry, it’s completely normal.

​Christian Jarrett, a cognitive neuroscientist and science writer, has explained in his column for BBC’s Science Focus that what we experience is called the ‘doorway effect’.

It’s a term used to describe when people forget their initial purpose when entering a new room.

“Fear not, you’re far from the only one to have had this rather unsettling experience,” Jarrett said.

In short, the doorway effect takes place when our brains like to compartmentalise activities and information based on environmental contexts.

How the doorway effect takes over the brain

The confusion is real (Getty Stock Images)

When we move from room to room, the door acts like a metaphorical boundary between these contexts.

That’s when the brain likes to completely reset/update its current understanding of the new environment.

Jarrett noted that a team at the University of Queensland explored the doorway effect even further.

“They found that passing through doorways that joined identical rooms mostly didn’t impact memory – perhaps because there wasn’t enough of a changed context to create a significant event boundary,” he said.

“It was only when these researchers distracted their volunteers with a simultaneous secondary task that the doorways between identical rooms affected memory.”

He continued: “The Queensland team said this chimes with everyday experience in that it’s mostly when we’re distracted, with our mind on other things, that we’re inclined to arrive in a room and forget what we came for.”

The ‘doorway effect’ is completely normal (Getty Stock Images)

Jarrett said that the study also suggested that ‘the doorway effect is more likely to occur when there is a significant change in context – for instance, if you leave your living room for the garden’.

How to not let the doorway effect take over

The science writer said that the ‘new results also point to a potential cure’, which is to ‘try to stay focused on your purpose when you pass through a doorway on an errand’.

While that might sound like too much work, Jarrett suggests that, instead, ‘you could always make a note on the back of your hand’.

Personally, I use my phone’s ‘Notes’ app to try and keep track of my errands.

But even with everything written down, I still don’t really know why I’ll walk into the kitchen to look for the TV remote.