Isolation Effect
Von Restorff Effect
Predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered.
Origin
German psychiatrist and pediatrician Hedwig von Restorff first demonstrated the effect in 1933, while working as a postdoctoral assistant to Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin. Her paper in Psychologische Forschung showed that participants recalled isolated, distinctive items from a list far better than homogeneous ones — establishing a systematic link between perceptual distinctiveness and memory encoding. Gestalt psychology, with its emphasis on figure-ground relationships, provided the theoretical framework for her findings, which cognitive scientists later named in her honor and extended into design, advertising, and interface research.