Zeigarnik effect

The tendency to remember interrupted or unfinished tasks better than completed ones. It is commonly explained as a consequence of unresolved goals keeping attention and memory active.

Goal pursuit: The process of setting, pursuing, and responding to goals. An interrupted task remains cognitively active when its goal is still being pursued.
Bluma Zeigarnik: A Soviet psychologist whose research established the effect named after her. Her experiments gave the phenomenon its name and its original evidence.
Interrupted-task recall experiment: An experimental procedure that interrupts some tasks and compares their later recall with completed tasks. This is the basic design used to test the Zeigarnik effect.
Peak-end rule: A judgment bias in which an experience is evaluated mainly by its most intense moment and ending. It concerns retrospective evaluation, not superior recall of unfinished tasks.
Cliffhanger: A narrative device that interrupts a story at a moment of suspense or uncertainty. Unresolved story goals may encourage attention to continue beyond the interruption.
Cognitive tension: Mental strain produced by unresolved goals, conflicts, or incomplete intentions. The proposed tension of an unfinished task may keep it accessible in memory.
Kurt Lewin: A German-American psychologist who developed field theory and influenced early research on motivation. Zeigarnik’s work emerged from Lewin’s account of psychological tension around goals.
Task interruption: An externally or internally caused pause before a task reaches completion. Interruption is the condition that distinguishes unfinished tasks in the classic experiments.
Recency effect: The tendency to recall items near the end of a sequence better than earlier items. It attributes recall to position in a sequence rather than task incompletion.
Pomodoro Technique: A time-management method that alternates focused work intervals with short breaks. Its planned pauses leave tasks unfinished, though its benefits do not depend on this effect alone.

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Google effectCompared with: It concerns memory for incomplete tasks, not information expected to remain online.