Von Restorff Effect
Items that stand out from their peers are more likely to be remembered.
The Von Restorff effect, also called the isolation effect, predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered. Named after the psychiatrist Hedwig von Restorff who studied it in 1933. UI designers use this to draw attention to call-to-action buttons, and marketers use it to make packaging pop on crowded shelves.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Marketing CTA Button Contrast A bright orange 'Buy Now' button on a muted-color page converts significantly higher than one that blends in.
Someone has already built a business on this.
Biases are not only private errors. They are design targets — patterns deliberately engineered into interfaces because they reliably work.
- E-commerce Red Price Highlighting Sale prices shown in red against grey original prices exploit the isolation effect to make discounts feel dramatic even when minimal.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After a meal with multiple similar courses, a diner remembers the one served at a dramatically different temperature more clearly, because the thermal distinctiveness creates a memorable sensory experience that separates it from the otherwise similar serving conditions of the other dishes.
After a dinner with multiple similar dishes, a guest remembers the one that was served first more clearly, because the temporal distinctiveness of its position in the meal creates a memorable impression that separates it from the otherwise sequentially similar courses that followed.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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