Psychology AS · The core studies. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.
Andrade (2010) studied attention and memory. When a task is boring, people start to daydream, and daydreaming takes attention away from the task. Andrade asked whether doodling helps people to concentrate on a dull task or distracts them.
Forty adults listened to a dull mock telephone message about a party and wrote down the names of the people who were coming. Half of them also shaded in shapes on a sheet of paper while they listened. Afterwards everyone had a surprise memory test on the names and on the places mentioned.
The doodlers remembered more. Doodling seems to help concentration, perhaps because it reduces daydreaming without using much of the mind's capacity.
Students say the doodlers drew freely. They only shaded printed shapes, so the result may not apply to free drawing, and the study did not measure daydreaming directly.
Answer: The doodlers recalled about 29% more than the control group.
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