Andrade

draw ur heart away <3

Psychology being investigated:

* Attention is required for the encoding stage of the memory process
* Boredom plays a role in paying attention to information
* Whether doodling aids in concentration
* Doodling takes up some of our information processing capacity, making us perform worse on a divided attention task
* However, if both tasks are highly practiced and ‘automatic’ it may not
* Doodling can raise arousal and enhance focused attention, which improves performance, by reducing daydreaming

Background

Doodling: the sketching that is unrelated to the task

* Boredom was increased in ppts to create a situation where there’d be a potential for doodling to affect their attention
* The listening and drawing task ensured that the two tasks wouldn’t be in direct competition for one memory resource

Aim

To investigate whether doodling affects concentration by enabling people to attend more effectively

To test whether performing a concurrent task (doodling) would help memory recall

Research method

Lab experiment

Research design

Independent measures - control or doodling group

IV

Doodling or not doodling

DV

The responses about the names of party-goers and places mentioned

Sample

40 members of a ppt panel unit for cognitive research

* Opportunity sample
* General population
* Ages 18-55
* Paid a small sum for participation
* Mostly females (35/40)

How were ppts recruited and why?

Ppts who had completed a different student were asked if they had 5 minutes to help with another study - opportunity sampling

* This was done to enhance the boredom of the task, by using people who planned to go home

How many people were in each group?

20 ppts per group

* 2M in control
* 3M in doodling

All ppts were given…

a piece of paper as a response sheet

The control had what kind of paper?

A sheet of lined paper, but they were given no instructions about doodling

The doodling group had what kind of paper?

A sheet of A4, with alternating rows of squares and circles (10 per row)

* There was a wide margin on the left for recording target information


* They were asked to shade in the shapes with a pencil, w/o worry about speed and neatness
* Described to them as ‘something to relieve the boredom’

All ppts listened to the same…

monotonous mock telephone call about a party

The ppts were given standard instructions, including:

‘Just write down the names of ppl will definitely/probably be coming to the party. Ignore the names of those who can’t come.‘

Ppts were told beforehand that…

they would be tested on the names of people attending the party (not the ones who wouldn’t be there)

* ‘Monitoring’ task

Describe the mock telephone call:

It last 2.5 minutes and was recorded at an average speed of 227 words per minute

* It had 8 names of people attending a party, and the names of 3 ppl and 1 cat who couldn’t attend
* 8 place names were mentioned and irrelevant details

The recall task was…

an unexpected test on the names of places mentioned

The order of the recall and monitoring task was…

counterbalanced

* Half of the ppts in each condition were asked to recall the names of party-goers then the places mentioned, other half was vise-versa

How was the DV operationalized?

Plausible mishearings (e.g. ‘Greg’ for ‘Craig’) were counted as correct

* Other names one the tape but weren’t party-goers & made up names were counted as false alarms
* Words like ‘sister’ were ignored

How was the monitoring performance score calculated?

\# of correct names - # of false alarms

Participant were in a…

dull, quiet room at the University of Plymouth

Each ppts listened to the tape at…

a comfortable volume and wrote down the names as instructed

After ppts finished listening to the tape…

the experimenter collected the response sheet and talked to the ppt for 1 minute

* The included an apology for misleading them about the memory test

After ppts were apologized to they…

completed the surprise test of recalling names of place then people or vice versa

At the end of the study…

ppts were debriefed and asked if they suspected there’d be a memory test

What was the mean number of shaded shapes on the printed sheet?

36\.3 (range of 3-110)

* No ppts in control had doodled

Ppts in the control correctly recalled how many of party-goers names?

A mean of 7.1 of the 8 party-goers

* 5 ppl made a false alarm

Ppts in the doodling group correctly recalled how many of the party-goers anems?

A mean of 7.8 of the 8 party-goers

* 1 person made a false alarm

Mean recall of names and places for doodling ppts

7\.5, 29% more than the mean of the control group

Mean recall of names and places for the control

5\.8

Monitoring performance was…

significantly higher in the doodling condition compared to the control condition

Both groups had the same average recall for…

false alarms of places (0.3)

Conclusions:

* People concentrate better when allowed to doodle as it focuses their attention, since experimental ppts performed better than control ppts who weren’t doodling
* People can pay attention to information even when engaged in dual-processing

How did this study limited uncontrolled variables?

* Lab experiment w/independent measures
* Ppts were listening at a comfortable volume and a recorded telephone message allowed important words to be said in the same way for everyone

How was the study standardized?

* All ppts were all equally likely to be bored and likely to daydream because:
* The monotony of the recording
* Ppts were in a dull, quiet room
* They did the experiment when they expected to go home
* Research was more valid - differences in results b/t conditions were due to the IV
* More reliable - all ppts were similarly bored

How was the doodling standardized?

All ppts had the same doodling sheets

* This increased validity along with encouragement of experimental ppts to doodle in a natural way

Why is there a risk of ppt variables?

The # of shapes the individuals shaded differed

* However, no ppts in the control doodled and only one in the doodling condition didn’t (but they were replaced)

Why is generalisability limited?

Sample was all members of a recruitment panel, who volunteer for these things - very similar

More females than males in the sample

* This could bias the sample and lower validity

There was a risk of…

demand characteristics, because some suspected the memory test

* But they were roughly equal in each condition and didn’t try to actively remember - unlikely to reduce validity
* Removing their data didn’t alter the conclusion

The study collected…

quantitative data for the # of names and places recalled

* Objective record of memory

Why could qualitative data have been useful?

Self-reports for daydreaming would’ve helped explore whether improved results for doodling was due to attention or memory

Ppts couldn’t provide fully informed consent because..

they were given an unexpected test on place names

The unexpected test could’ve resulted in…

psychological harm by making ppts distressed if they were unable to remember the names

Everyday applications:

Doodling might be advantageous

* Shading, doesn’t interfere with the primary task
* However, try to draw something specific could be counterproductive, and distract us from the main task
* **This knowledge enables student to use doodling in an effective way**

Individual vs. Situational

Individual:

* Some participants may have a personality type that allows them to be more attentive, even when doodling

Situational

* Doodling affected recall, which has a situational effect on information processing
* Since all ppts were bored, there are situational c