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Psychological Phenomena

Doorway Effect

Memory Biases and Effects

The doorway effect, also called the location updating effect, is the short term memory lapse that commonly occurs when a person walks through a doorway or otherwise changes location or task. Passing through an event boundary such as a doorway prompts the mind to update its model of the current situation, and information belonging to the event just left behind is discarded from working memory, producing forgetting tied to crossing the boundary rather than to the passage of time alone. The effect has been observed even when participants cross virtual doorways in a computer simulation or simply imagine walking through one, and it can be reduced when information from before the boundary stays causally connected to what follows it. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Classification
Type of Phenomenon
Cognitive Phenomenon 1
Connections

In Branch

Source Wikipedia: Event Perception
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Event Perception
  • Relation to episodic memory section (article: Event perception)
    The "doorway effect" is observed even when participants traverse virtual spaces in VR, or imagine themselves walking through a doorway.
  • lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
    Event perception is a cognitive process responsible for partitioning the continuous flow of conscious experience into discrete, meaningful units called events.
  • In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
    Wikipedia article 'Event perception' is filed under Category:Cognitive psychology.
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