Andrade (Doodling)

Question 1

Doodling

Answer 1

It is a form of aimless sketching. Doodling is typically spontaneous and automatic.

Question 2

Daydreaming

Answer 2

a mildly state of altered consciousness in which we experience a sense of being ‘lost in our thoughts,’ typically positive ones, and detachment from our environment.

Question 3

Working memory

Answer 3

The working memory model proposes separate components for processing visual and auditory information.

These components allow the brain to temporarily hold and manipulate information from these different senses which suggests separate visual and auditory memory systems.

The study uses an auditory task (listening to a phone message) and a visual task (doodling) to investigate how these systems interact.

Question 4

Dual-task design

Answer 4

A dual-task design requires participants to engage in two tasks concurrently. The goal is to observe how performing the concurrent task affects the performance of the primary.

Question 5

Arousal

Answer 5

The extent to which we are alert, for example, responsiveness to external sensory stimuli. It has physiological and psychological components, and it is mediated by the nervous system and hormones.

Question 6

Aims

Answer 6

To investigate whether doodling aids concentration or memory.
To investigate if doodling affects the recall of places and names.
To test the effects of doodling on a boring or mundane task.

Question 7

Sample

Answer 7

Recruited from the UK’s Medical Research Council unit of cognitive research.
35 females/5 males = 40 ps in total
Aged 18-55 YO
In each experimental condition, there were 20 participants.
Control group: 18 f/2 m
Exp group: 17 f/ 3 m
Volunteer sample.
Recruited after completing another, unrelated study at the same research facility.
1 Ps did not doodle and so was replaced..

Question 8

Design

Answer 8

Lab exp.
Independent measures design.

Question 9

IV

Answer 9

The act of doodling.
Manipulated by providing different materials to the two groups: one group was given paper with shapes to shade in, and the other group was given lined paper.
Was operationally defined as shading in printed shapes on a response sheet. This was done to ensure that the doodling task did not require too much attention and was easily measurable.

Question 10

DV

Answer 10

The ps’ memory and attention performance was measured through a monitoring task and a surprise recall test.

This was measured quantitatively by calculating the number of correct names and places recalled, minus any false alarms.

Question 11

Procedure

Answer 11

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions:

Doodling Group: Participants were given an A4 sheet of paper with alternating rows of 10 squares and circles, each about 1 cm in diameter. They were instructed to shade in the shapes while listening to the message and were told this was to relieve boredom, with no emphasis on neatness or speed. They were also given a 4.5 cm margin on the left side of the paper to write down the names.
Control Group: Participants were given a standard A4 sheet of lined paper and a pencil. They were not given any doodling instructions.

Question 12

Monitoring Task

Answer 12

Ps listened to a pre-recorded, monotonous telephone message for 2.5 mins.

The message included names of 8 ppl attending a party, 3 ppl (and one cat) not attending, and 8 place names.

The message was recorded on an audio cassette and played at 227 wpm.

While listening, ps were instructed to write down the names of ppl who would be attending the party.

The control group wrote these names on lined paper, while the doodling group wrote them in the margin on a sheet of paper with shapes to shade in.

Question 13

Surprise Recall Task

Answer 13

After the telephone message, ps were given a surprise memory test. They were not informed about this test beforehand

After a min of conversation with the experimenter, they were asked to recall the names of party-goers or places.

The order of the recall tasks were counterbalanced to reduce order effects.
Ps were then debriefed and asked if they suspected that the study was a memory test

Question 14

Data Collection and Analysis

Answer 14

The number of shapes shaded by participants in the doodling group was counted.

This was done to ensure that they had followed the instructions to doodle and to measure the extent of their doodling.

The range of the amount of doodling was recorded.

The number of correct names noted down, minus any false alarms (names of people not attending) was used to assess monitoring performance and the recall task.

Plausible mishearings of names (e.g. “Greg” instead of “Craig”) were counted as correct, provided that the same plausible mishearing was used consistently in the monitoring and recall phases.

Data from participants who suspected a memory test were removed from the analysis to check for demand characteristics.

Question 15

Results

Answer 15

1. Ps in the doodling group shaded an average of 36.3 shapes on their response sheets, with a range from 3 to 110.
   2.The doodling group correctly wrote down a mean of 7.8 names of party-goers, with one false alarm, leading to a monitoring score of 7.71.
2. The control group correctly wrote down a mean of 7.1 names, with five false alarms, resulting in a monitoring score of 6.91.
3. This difference was statistically significant, indicating that doodling helped ps concentrate better on the primary task of monitoring the telephone message.
4. When recalling names, the doodling group had a mean score of 5.1.
5. While the control group had a mean score of 4.03.
6. For places, the doodling group had a mean score of 2.4.
7. While the control group had a mean score of 1.83.
8. When combining the recall of both names and places, the doodling group recalled a mean of 7.5 pieces of information, which was 29% more than the control group’s mean of 5.81.
9. The recall of names was better than the recall of places for both groups.

Question 16

Conclusion

Answer 16

1. Ppl concentrate better and their memory is better when allowed to doodle, as it focuses their attention and stops them from getting distracted.
2. The study notes two possible explanations for why doodling improves recall: that either doodling affects attention or it improves memory by encouraging deeper information processing.
3. However, without measuring daydreaming, it was difficult to distinguish between the two explanations.

Question 17

Strength (Counterbalancing)

Answer 17

Counterbalancing was used to control for order effects with regard to the dependent variable.

Half the participants recalled names first and then places, while the other half recalled places first and then names.

This ensured that the order of the memory recall task did not affect the results

Question 18

Strength (Control for demand characterisitics)

Answer 18

The study incorporated a deception where participants were not informed that there would be a memory test.This was done to ensure that participants did not purposely try to memorize the information.

Additionally, the researchers asked participants about any suspicion of a memory test.

When data from the suspicious participants were removed, the results remained significant, suggesting that demand characteristics did not have a significant effect on the results

Question 19

Strength (Quantitative Data)

Answer 19

The study primarily collected quantitative data, such as the number of shapes shaded by the doodling group and the number of names and places recalled.

This numerical data allows for easy comparison between the experimental and control conditions.

The use of means, standard deviations, and statistical tests all contributed to a robust analysis of the data.

Question 20

Strength (Already bored)

Answer 20

The study was designed to create a boring condition, which could cause daydreaming.

The researchers recruited participants after they had completed another study to make it more likely they would be bored

Question 21

Weaknesses (Limited Ecological Validity)

Answer 21

The study was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting.The tasks involved listening to a monotonous telephone message and shading in shapes, which are not typical of real-life situations where doodling occurs.

This artificiality makes it difficult to generalize the findings to everyday scenarios, such as classrooms, workplaces, or other settings.

Real-world tasks are rarely purely auditory or visual, and people tend to draw shapes and figures while doodling, rather than just shading in pre-printed shapes.

The study’s task of monitoring a phone message was also not a common task for people to perform.

Question 22

Weakness (Sample Bias and Limited Generalizability)

Answer 22

The participants were recruited from a medical research panel. This panel may have a specific interests or motivations to be part of the study, so the sample was not very diverse.

The sample was not representative of the general population, There were only 5 males across the two groups, so the findings about concentration and memory may only apply to females.

The age range of 18-55, while broad, might not represent all age groups, further limiting generalizability.

The small sample size of 40 participants also makes it difficult to generalize the findings to a larger population

Question 23

Weakness ( Lack of Measurement of Daydreaming)

Answer 23

The study did not directly assess if daydreaming occurred.

This omission makes it difficult to determine whether the improved performance was due to reduced daydreaming, increased attention, or deeper processing.

It would have been helpful to have self-reports of daydreaming or other ways to measure this construct.

Question 24

Weakness (Participant Variables)

Answer 24

Individual differences in the way people doodle and how much they doodle could affect the results.The range of shapes shaded varied greatly (3-110), which shows that some people doodled much more than others.

This variation could be a confounding variable because the study did not measure or control this.

Some people may have also naturally had better memories than others, affecting the results

Question 25

Ethics (Deception)

Answer 25

Participants were not fully informed about the true purpose of the study. They were told they were participating in a study about monitoring a phone message, but were not informed that there would be a surprise memory test at the end. This withholding of information is a form of deception, as the participants were not aware of all aspects of the study. The deception was considered necessary for the validity of the study. The researchers had to deceive participants to prevent them from deliberately trying to memorize information, which would have affected the results.The researchers did try to maintain ethical standards by debriefing and explaining the deception, and also by apologizing for misleading them.

Question 26

Ethics (Informed Consent)

Answer 26

Because of the deception, participants did not give fully informed consent.Participants were not given all the information about the study, including the surprise memory test, before agreeing to participate. This lack of full disclosure violates the ethical principle of informed consent, which requires participants to be aware of the nature of the study, including its purpose, procedures, and any potential risks or benefits before participating.

Question 27

Ethics (Psychological Distress)

Answer 27

The study involved a benign task that posed no psychological or physical risk to the participants. The doodling and monitoring tasks were not stressful or harmful, minimizing potential negative impacts on the participants. Because the task was benign, there was no real risk of harm for the participants. The surprise memory test may have caused some psychological distress to participants. Some participants might have felt uncomfortable or anxious about being asked to recall information they did not know they would be tested on. They might have felt they would be judged on their memory performance.

Question 28

Ethics (Debriefing)

Answer 28

To mitigate the ethical concerns about deception, the researchers conducted a debriefing session at the end of the study. During the debriefing, the participants were informed of the true aim of the study and the reasons for the deception. The researchers apologized to the participants for misleading them about the surprise memory test. Debriefing is a measure to control for the unethical procedure of deception.

Question 29

Application to everyday life

Answer 29

1. The study’s findings suggest that doodling can be integrated into learning strategies to keep students engaged during passive learning activities, such as listening to lectures or watching educational videos. Educators might encourage doodling as a way to maintain focus, particularly for students who struggle with attention. 2. Doodling may also reduce negative thinking, by occupying the mental resources that would otherwise be spent in negative thoughts. 3. Doodling may be a practical, non-pharmacological strategy to help manage symptoms of ADHD, as it could provide enough stimulus to prevent distractions and improve focus on a primary task.

Question 30

Links to the Cognitive Approach

Answer 30

1. The cognitive approach is about the way we process information and how our memory works. 2. Cognitive psychology examines how our memory works. 3. The study explored the way we process information, which is input, process, and output. 4. The study tested whether doodling affects memory recall. 5. People were able to process information from a telephone message without focusing on it. 6. Participants could recall more names when they were doodling, so they could selectively attend. 7. The study examined the role of split attention in recall. 8. Differences between people can be attributed to individual patterns of cognition. 9. The doodling group performed better on the monitoring task, showing that differences between the groups can be explained by cognitions or thinking processes and that they were dual processing information. 10. Doodling allowed access to optimal levels of cognitive processing and reduced daydreaming.

Question 31

Individual and situational explanations

Answer 31

The study shows how an individual’s action (doodling) can change the outcome of a situation (a boring task).

Question 32

Individual differences

Answer 32

The study may support the individual side of the debate because everyone doodled in different ways, perhaps based on their personality type. There was a wide variety in the amount of doodles (e.g., someone doodled 100 items). People who are labeled as extraverts may require doing more than one thing at once to help stimulate themselves and concentrate better. Different personalities will doodle in different ways.

Question 33

Situational explanations

Answer 33

The study may support the situational side of the debate because Andrade made sure everyone was bored so the situation caused them to doodle and concentrate more when doodling. The task itself may have brought about an improvement in concentration as doodling helped them focus more and the doodling group recalled more correct names than the control. The situation of a boring or monotonous telephone message made the participants doodle, and some of these participants may be used to doodling in boring situations.