Study Basics
This common activity is defined in the study as the sketching of patterns and figures unrelated to the primary task.
Doodling
Participants were recruited from this UK council’s unit for cognitive research.
What is the Medical Research Council?
The mock telephone message was recorded in this type of voice.
Monotonous
This is the percentage more that doodlers recalled compared to the mean of the control group.
29%
This is the mental activity that doodling reduces to help concentration on the primary task.
Daydreaming
What are the two components of the working memory model that this study focuses on?
Phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad
There were this many participants in the doodling condition and the same number in the control condition.
20
Participants in the doodling condition were asked to do this to the squares and circles on the sheet.
Shade
This was the mean number of shapes shaded by participants in the doodling condition.
What is 36.3?
One explanation is that doodling raises this to reduce daydreaming and improve focus.
Arousal
This was the boring primary task all participants had to perform while either doodling or not.
listening to a (mock telephone) message?
Participants were in this age range.
18-55
The order of recalling names and places was controlled using this technique.
Counterbalancing
Doodlers performed better on both monitored information (names) and this type of information (places).
Incidental info
What was included in the results (aside from correct and memory scores?
False alarms
These are the two possible explanations offered for why memory improved in the doodling condition.
What are deeper processing or better attention?
No participant in this condition doodled spontaneously.
control condition / control group?
This is another name for the doodling task
Concurrent task
For monitored names, the doodling group’s memory score was this compared to control’s.
5.1 vs 4.0
Without a measure of this, it was difficult to distinguish between the two explanations.
Daydreaming (again...)
What does this study say in regards to the working memory model?
This many doodlers and this many controls suspected there would be a memory test
3 doodlers and 4 control participants
Three ways in which Andrade controlled the experiment
Groups, instructions, study beforehand, lab experiment
For incidental places, the doodling group’s memory score was this compared to control’s.
2.4 vs 1.8
It would have been useful to collect this type of data about whether participants daydreamed.
Qualitative data