Doorway Effect

There’s an interesting effect called “Doorway effect”.  Picture an elderly woman (who unfortunately are more prone to brain issues) who while reading a book  in the living room thinks of something she has to get in the kitchen. 

She gets up and walks to the kitchen.  As she passes the doorway of the kitchen, she realizes something.

She realizes she doesn’t know what she was to get.  She doesn’t remember but as she walks back to the living room she remembers that she wanted to get some tea. So she gets the tea and is able to settle back on the sofa to savor the tea.

Supporting Healthy Aging

So the “doorway effect” doesn’t happen just in older individuals. It happens in people of all ages and it’s normal. 

The  brain has a list of things to remember and that changes with different environments. So when she went to the kitchen she didn’t remember what she wanted to get. 

But when she went back to the original environment she was able to remember what she wanted to get.

As you would expect, the brain changes with aging. There’s an increase in space in the brain as the gray matter which is full of neurons and their endings decrease. But not everything is bad, as we age, our speaking vocabulary increases until age 65 then stays the same.  And our wisdom increases as well. 🙂