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Life

30th Apr 2016

Researchers discover why we often forget the reason we just walked into a room

Colm Boohig

We think that this has happened to more or less everyone.

JOE can’t begin to tell you the amount of times we’ve walked into a room full of purpose, before suddenly stopping in our tracks and wondering why the f*ck we just came in.

We don’t look too dissimilar to this…

giphy (99)

Well, according to researchers at the University of Notre Dame, there is a specific reason for this regular occurrence.

It’s called the ‘boundary effect’ and it concerns the door we’ve just entered through.

As reported by the Metro, when we pass through the threshold of a room, the door acts as an ‘event boundary’ which can cause our brain to immediately forget what was in our mind prior to entering the room.

Here’s Neymar to demonstrate what that looks like…

giphy (100)

To make matters even more interesting, researchers conducted studies which determined that walking back from where you just came doesn’t restore your memory either.

Why is that?

It’s because our brain uses memory episodes to retain the plethora of information we receive every second. Therefore, entering a new room or environment often triggers the brain to clear the space and start recording completely new information.

The moral of the story is to never walk in to a room, ever again. Either that or maybe just write everything down from now on.

Writing innit

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge

Topics:

Brain,life,Memory