Bluma Zeigarnik

Bluma Zeigarnik (Russian: Блю́ма Ву́льфовна Зейга́рник, IPA: [ˈblʲumə ˈvulʲfəvnə zʲɪjˈɡarnʲɪk]; 9 November [O.S. 27 October] 1900 – 24 February 1988) was a Soviet psychologist of Lithuanian origin, a member of the Berlin School of experimental psychology and the so-called Vygotsky Circle. She contributed to the establishment of experimental psychopathology as a separate discipline in the Soviet Union in the post-World War II period.

In the 1920s she conducted a study on memory, in which she compared memory in relation to interrupted and completed tasks. She had found that interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones; this is now known as the Zeigarnik effect. From 1931 she worked in the Soviet Union. She is considered one of the co-founders of the Department of Psychology at the Moscow State University. In 1983 she received the Lewin Memorial Award for her psychological research.