I was reading something online which happened to talk about first love and why first love was unforgettable. It brought up a theory in psychology, known as the Zeigarnik effect (蔡氏效應), which states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. Thus, interruption of a task requiring focus could somehow improve one’s ability to remember it afterwards. Isn’t it interesting? I don’t know if it is true or not. Maybe when you have unfinished business, you tend to become more anxious which leads to more constant thought of the incomplete tasks and in turn causes it to retain more in memory. However, if you are not motivated enough to finish a task, the Zeigarnik Effect might not work as much. We will see if this makes any difference in my son's study.
Written by Elisa English
On August 6th, 2019 in Minneapolis