Memory is often unreliable…we can point the finger at doors. Yes, doors.
Have you ever walked through a door and forgot why you were entering the room in the first place? So you wander around, in a momentary daze, trying to solve a mystery – a sleuth almost. What is it about doors that make us forgetful, as if we’re waking up out of a deep sleep? A study courtesy of Gabriel Radvansky, a University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor, offers up a solution.
Doors are not only physical boundaries; they’re also mental boundaries. Of his study, Radvansky said, “Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away.”
In other words, the mind is a kind of filing cabinet or flash drive, constantly sorting our lives. Due to the plethora of information, the mind uses doorways as a way to separate it all. You enter through a doorway and suddenly there is a new drawer in your mental filing cabinet. This leads to forgetfulness, a memory lapse. Jumping from drawer to drawer is tougher than it sounds.
In order to prove his thesis, Radvansky conducted three experiments, asking participants to perform memory tasks while entering and exiting a door. In the first experiment, subjects utilized a virtual environment, walking through rooms and placing objects on tables. The second experiment asked that customers move in or out of rooms concealing objects in boxes. The third experiment asked that subjects walk through various doorways. All experiments showed that the act of passing through a doorway could debilitate memory for some time, suggesting that doorways are boundary events to help the mind sort our lives.
Finally, we have an explanation why so many people forget to protect their doors during construction. Don’t let “boundary events” add to the complexity of the construction process. Plan now to contact Rick at Construction Protection Systems and learn how 1-2-3 Door Shield® can save you time and money. After all, if we are going to experience memory lapses walking through doors, at least the doors should be undamaged.
Now if only we had a Door Shield for our minds!
–Rick
Source: http://news.nd.edu/news/27476-walking-through-doorways-causes-forgetting-new-research-shows/
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