Welcome to the last day of April 2018 A to Z Blog Challenge .
I will end my journey into all things memory with a discussion of the Zeigarnik effect. Named after Bluma Zeigarnik, Russian psychologist who researched this phenomenon, the Zeigarnik effect indicates that we remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than we remember finished ones.
Part of this seems intuitive–if we haven’t finished something, we are probably stressing about it, so it remains in the mind. Once finished, we check the task off the to do list in our heads and move on.
Perhaps more interesting are the areas where its has been applied.
One example is homework. If a student sits down and does it all in one take, will they remember it better than a student who breaks into parts?
Truthfully, this example seems problematic. Whether done in one sitting or in parts, the student eventually finishes it that day, so does the effect really occur? On the other hand, this does seem to explain why we don’t really retain material we cram the night before, as opposed to learn over time in bits and pieces over the course of a term.
Another more interesting example is the Harden Rule in Basketball, created to address a phenomenon in which basketball players are awarded free throws for just chucking the ball from behind the 3 point line when a player from the other team approaches, a trick used most often by James Harden. The was explained using the Zeigarnik effect which, in this case, would suggest that the stoppage or interruption of play due to a foul call that is repeated regularly, leads to cognitive bias (in memory) toward the act.
Personally, I found it hard to wrap my head around the Harden rule, but if I’ve learned anything over this month, it’s that anything involving the brain and memory is never simple or straightforward. An open mind is needed. Perhaps always.
What’s been your favorite memory from the A to Z Challenge?
I’ve never heard of this before, interesting!