Mind the Threshold

"Mind the Threshold – Why walking through a door makes you forget" investigates a universal human experience: You walk into a room and instantly forget why you went there. For years, people thought this was a sign of aging or poor memory.



Neuroscience writer David Palmer explains the research of Gabriel Radvansky at the University of Notre Dame. It's called the "Doorway Effect." Our brains organize memories by "events." Passing through a doorway signals to the brain that a new event has begun, so it "dumps" the information from the previous room to free up processing power.



This book is a comforting guide to the quirks of human cognition. It explains that forgetting your keys isn't a failure; it's a feature of a highly efficient filing system that prioritizes the present over the past.