andrade doodling

• Doodling includes sketching patterns and figures unrelated to a primary task.
• The working memory model includes visual and auditory working memory.
• Listening to a message involves auditory tasks, while doodling involves visuo-spatial tasks.
• Doodling increases arousal and may enhance memory and concentration by reducing daydreaming.

Psychology Being Investigated

• The Working Memory Model suggests people use visual and auditory memories.
• Daydreaming is a state of consciousness where someone appears lost in thought.
• Focused attention is when concentration is focused on one primary task.
• Divided attention is when concentration is split between two tasks.

Aim

• The study aimed to test if doodling aids concentration and memory during a boring task.

Method and Design

• A lab experiment was conducted in a controlled and artificial setting.
• Doodling versus no doodling was the independent variable.
• Concentration and memory, as measured by scores on monitoring and recall tasks, were the dependent variables.
• An Independent Measures Design was used.

Sample

• 40 participants (35 female, 5 male) were part of a participant panel at the UK’s Medical Research Council unit for cognitive research.
• Participants' ages ranged from 18–55 years.
• The participants volunteered for a previous study and were approached after completing that study.
• Opportunity sampling was used.

Apparatus

• A mock telephone call invited the listener to a party.
• The call included names of eight attendees, three non-attendees, and eight U.K. locations.
• The dull call was played at 227 words/minute for 2.5 minutes.
• A4 paper with a 4.5cm margin and ten rows of alternating squares and circles was provided for doodling.
• Control group participants had plain A4 lined paper.

Procedure

• Participants were randomly assigned to doodling or control conditions (20 per group).
• Participants were placed in a visually dull room and listened to a mock telephone call, and told it was dull and they did not need to remember it.
• The tape was played at a comfortable volume at 227 words per minute for 2.5 minutes.
• Doodling group participants received paper with alternating rows of 10 squares and 10 circles and were told to shade the shapes if they got bored.
• Control group participants received plain A4 lined paper
• Participants were instructed to write down the names of people attending the party, excluding themselves, in the monitoring task.
• The monitoring task was scored as: correct names written minus false alarms.
• False alarms are names of people that were not attending
• Plausible mishearings like Greg for Craig were counted as correct.
• After this task, participants were debriefed and then completed a recall task.
• The recall task had participants recalling names of attendees and eight places mentioned on the tape.
• The names task was the recall of monitored information score calculated as correct names recalled minus false alarms.
• The places task was the recall of incidental information score calculated as correct names recalled minus false alarms.
• The procedure was counterbalanced by having half the participants in each group perform the recall task for names first and the other half recalling places first.

Controls

• All participants heard the same mock telephone call.
• It was played at a comfortable volume at a speed of 227 words per minute for 2.5 minutes.
• All doodling participants had the same sheet of paper with the same number of squares and circles with a 4.5 cm margin
• All control group participants had the same A4 size sheet of lined paper without any shapes

Results

• The doodling group doodled an average of 36.3 shapes, ranging from 3–110.
• The monitoring performance score for the doodling group was a mean of 7.7 with 1 false alarm (mean correct names written = 7.8).
• The monitoring performance score for the control group was a mean of 6.9 with 5 false alarms (mean correct names written = 7.1).
• The recall task score for names for the doodling group was a mean of 5.1 and for the control group, 4.0.
• The recall task score for places for the doodling group was a mean of 2.4 and for the control group 1.8.
• Three doodling participants and four control participants suspected a memory task when debriefed and did not try to remember the information.

Conclusion

• Doodling aids concentration and memory in a boring task.
• The doodling group had higher scores in the monitoring and recall tasks for both monitored and incidental information.
• Doodling enhances concentration due to arousal, which may reduce daydreaming.