Why is it that when you enter a room, you sometimes forget what you went into the room for, and what’s it called?

Question: Why is it that when you enter a room, you sometimes forget what you went into the room for, and what's it called?
- Keywords:
  forget,
  location,
  memory
Asked by anon-188259 to Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 15 Nov 2018.
- Alex Reid answered on 15 Nov 2018:
  
  Hi this is a great question. This happens quite a lot, and has also happened to me. Memory can be what we call ‘context dependent’ and thinking about something in one particular environment might be harder outside that environment. Basically your brain links the environment with what you were thinking about. The act of moving from one room to another can shift environments quickly and make things harder to remember. In psychology the threshold between different environments has a fancy name: the ‘event boundary’. To avoid it just repeat to yourself what you are looking for as you move between rooms.
- Paul Matusz answered on 15 Nov 2018:
  
  Hi sasasarah55,
  
  Good question – to add to what Alex said, these behaviour result from your brain not deploying enough attention to bring back (again) that thought from your memory, and this in part be because of you changing the context, as Alex said, that has triggered this thought. So, indeed, go back and “retrace your steps”, also mentally – what did you start thinking about, which made you think about that thing, which in turn took you – . 🙂

Question: Why is it that when you enter a room, you sometimes forget what you went into the room for, and what's it called?