Effects Of Doodling On Concentration
Background
Doodle is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as a verb that means to draw pictures or patterns while thinking about something else or when you are bored. Doodling is usually associated with boredom or a task that relieves boredom. Doodling is a common practice amongst students and there are different doodling styles adopted by many people (S. Brown, 2011). It was investigated whether doodling negatively affects performance by minimising resources dedicated to the primary task or whether it enhances performance by aiding concentration (J. Andrade, 2010). It showed a 29% better recall performance for doodle group when compared to the control group. The field of study was loosely tied to Applied Cognitive Psychology. Other studies that investigated if doodling enhances concentration were conducted recently (M. Tadayon and R. Afhami, 2017; E. Chan, 2012; Singh. T & Kashyap. N, 2015). While most research supports the claim that doodling is, in fact, aid in concentration in most tasks at hand, E. Chan’s research on doodling and its effect on visual recall task performance in 2012, yielded negative results where non-doodlers had a significantly higher score in recalling images than doodlers. For some doodlers, doodling may be necessary to spark creativity, whereas for those at the other end of the spectrum, doodling seems to be therapeutic or simply engaging (W S Maclay, E Guttmann, and W Mayer-Gross; 1938). The research will look into the effects of doodling on concentration when different materials are used to doodle, as well as, the difference in recall performance between two different age groups. An audiotape will be used as a part of the memory recall task so that the activity of doodling would provide less competition for modality-specific resources.
Research Questions
The study conducted by J. Andrade on doodling and concentration targeted people between the age of 18 to 55 with participants randomly assigned to groups. In the study conducted by M. Tadayon and R. Afhami only concentrated on the effects of doodling on 12-13-year-old Junior High school students. The studies did not compare the performance score for different age groups to investigate whether there was a difference in score for doodlers and non-doodlers. It could be that the scores of people belonging to a specific age group were higher than that of others which may have caused a higher score for the doodle group. The investigation in this area is necessary to understand if doodling is an enhancement tool for younger people and older ones as well or it could only be utilised by younger people and serves as a distraction for people of the older generation. J. Andrade made use of a controlled medium for doodling which was shading already drawn shapes and M. Tadayon and R. Afhami let the participants freely choose the drawing tool, subject and pattern of their doodle. The studies did not look into the effect which the drawing tool may have in doodling to see if it affected the performance of the recall task. It is possible that some drawing tools may serve as a distraction for doodling or may help recall information better. So far, there haven’t been many studies conducted to investigate if gender plays a role in memory and concentration when it comes to doodling. 1. What effect does the drawing tool have on the concentration aid that doodling provides during an auditory task and the recall score?2. Does the recall score in the doodling group vary for two different age groups (15-20) and (45-50)? 3. Additionally, are there any differences in recall score between males and females?
Research Methodologyparticipants
There will be 60 participants in total obtained through opportunity sampling with 30 participants from the age group (15-20) and 30 participants from the age group (45-50). Moreover, there will be an equal distribution of both males and males across each age group. The participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups using drawing from the hat trick (Group Pencil and Group Colour pen). It will be ensured that there are people of both age groups present in the groups for later comparison. MATERIALS A monotonous 3-minute recording of a documentary about world population will play on speakers at a comfortable volume at an average speed. The audiotape will highlight the current 10 most populated countries in the world including top 3 poorest countries and the top 3 richest countries along with other unnecessary information that the participants will not be tested on. Participants in the Group Pencil will be provided with a soft 2B pencil along with an eraser. There will be a sheet of A4 sized paper with printed shapes on it, each shape 2 cm in diameter. There will be 10 cm of space at the bottom of the paper if the participants wish to do a note-making exercise. Participants in the Group Colour pen will be provided with a decorated blue colour pen along with an A4 sized sheet of paper with printed shapes on it, each shape 2cm in diameter. Like the Group Pencil, Group Colour pens will also have extra space at the bottom for any note-making exercises they wish to participate in. METHOD The quantitative research experiment will be conducted in the lab and will make use of an Interview session to test participants to obtain their memory score. The participants will be individually seated in a room to avoid any distraction once the documentary audio starts to play. Prior to the experiment, the participants will be instructed to note down any piece of information that they believe is relevant to the topic of Globalisation, which would serve as a deception to hide the true aim of the study. The participants will be ensured that they won’t be tested on the information. Both of the groups will be asked to shade the shapes printed on the paper whilst the audio plays and would be allowed to take down any country names or statistics that they wish. Once the audio recording is done playing, the participants will be engaged in conversation with the researcher where they will be debriefed and informed about the recall test including an apology for misleading them. All participants will be asked to recall the most populous countries and either the three richest ones or the poorest ones. The doodling sheets will be taken away from them. After this, the memory score will be generated using the recall test. The participants will only be able to score if the countries they list fall under one of the categories mentioned in the documentaries. The participants will get a +1 only if the above-mentioned condition is fulfilled and will be rewarded a +0. 5 if they are unable to recall the country’s full name or name the country with a similar name (For instance, Austria instead of Australia). There will be no negative marking for participants if they fail to recall any names. The data collected will be used to find the average score for each group (Pencil and Colour pen) as well as the average score for each age group. The researcher will also analyse if there is any difference in score for males and females of the two groups. The data will be displayed in the form of bar graphs for comparison of the three independent variables tested (Drawing tools, age groups, gender). The scores will be calculated to find any significant difference. This quantitative analysis will be objective and will not require subjective interpretation.
Bibliography
- What does doodling do? Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 24, pp. 100–106. Brown, S. (2011) The Miseducation of the Doodle, A List Apart, No. 322, 25 January (online). Available at: http://www. alistapart. com/articles/the-miseducation-of-the-doodle (accessed 19 June 2014)
- Chan, E. (2012) The Negative Effect of Doodling on Visual Recall Task Performance. University of British Columbia, Cognition research report, Vol. 1Maclay, W. S. , Guttmann, E. , & Mayer-Gross, W. (1938). Spontaneous Drawings as an Approach to some Problems of Psychopathology: (Section of Psychiatry). Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 31(11), 1337–1350.
- Singh, T. & Kashyap, N. (2015) Does Doodling Effect Performance: Comparison Across Retrieval Strategies Psychological Studies 60: 7. https://doi. org/10. 1007/s12646-014-0293-3 Tadayon, M. and Afhami, R. (2017), Doodling Effects on Junior High School Students’ Learning. Int J Art Des Educ, 36: 118-125. doi:10. 1111/jade. 12081
