I read this fascinating article: Doorways Cause Forgetting | Psychology Today
I wonder if this is neocortex “grid” cell re-anchoring?
6 Likes
Most likely. Another way to put it is that as your consciousness is working through mindspace as you are moving through the environment, it has to readjust to the change at what could be called a waypoint (the doorway). This phenomenon gets worse with age, don’t ask how I know.
1 Like
With the rat study it showed that the grid worked even in the dark and the proportionality would indicate the input is then the motor sensory loop, however if this loop is then “autopilot” via the sub cortex/cerebellum/spine the dumb boss area can potentially partially navigate without the cortex (cat without a brain example).
Enter a new room and this also creates a step change in stimulus and attantion change in the cortex, which may induced a long enough time delay (memory refresh / recall) to create a temporal dislocation which makes recovering access to the prior memory difficult (too many current inputs change in a small attention span) ?
Memory prior to entering the room has say 10 sensory correlates, engage autopilot and consious loops of thought ignore external changes for say 500mS, attention switches back to external perspective and wow, a lot has changed in one go… if I only have 4 of the original 10 inputs with the SDR/HTM example this would prevent the memory being active/recalled ?
Does the doorway more represent a certain level of change in a certain period of time, regardless of any grid ?
Just to throw in a different idea and thought…
2 Likes