Von Restorff effect

The Von Restorff effect (named after Hedwig von Restorff), also called the isolation effect, predicts that an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" (called distinctive encoding) is more likely to be remembered than other items.

For instance, if a person examines a shopping list with one item highlighted in bright green, he or she will be more likely to remember the highlighted item than any of the others.

This distinctiveness may also come in the form of humor, in which case the humor effect occurs. Similarly, specific examples include the bizarreness effect and the serial position effect.

See also

• List of cognitive biases
• List of memory biases

References

• Von Restorff, H. (1933). "Über die Wirkung von Bereichsbildungen im Spurenfeld (The effects of field formation in the trace field)". Psychologie Forschung 18: 299–342. doi:10.1007/BF02409636.