Comments on: Doodle your way to better memory

By: Eliza Kellman

Eliza Kellman — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:34:16 +0000

This is a very interesting post. The reasoning for this makes sense, so long as the doodler does not get distracted and pulled into a daydream based on the doodle, etc. However, I think it would be interesting to look at the affect on memory if the doodle is related to the lecture. A friend of mine finds it very helpful, rather than taking reading notes as he does his homework, to pause every so often and draw, doodle/sketch style, an interpretation of what he has just read. This visual representation, even though most likely a very abstract representation, helps him organize, process, and solidify the information. I think this is a very interesting and helpful way of studying that could benefit a lot of people. I think it would also be interesting to see how this process would work if done during lecture.

By: Psych 105 student

Psych 105 student — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:16:09 +0000

This was a very interesting and relevant post. One of my friends from high school used to spend all of English class doodling and claim it was necessary because without it, she had trouble paying attention to the teacher. At the time, this did not make much sense to me. These studies now make it clear that doodling really did help my friend pay attention in that class. It would be interesting to see if there is a connection between how intently a person is doodling and their level of attention in the class. It seems that if a person is very focused on their doodles, they would have a harder time focusing on what the teacher is saying. It is very interesting how doodling seems to help some students focus while it hinders the focus of other students.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 06 May 2013 00:56:49 +0000

As a student with ADD, this post greatly resonates with me because it acknowledges the difficulty of keeping focused on one under-stimulating task. Though previous research said that multitasking is harmful to learning, I have never found any feasible alternative. Very often I find myself daydreaming because I simply can’t devote that much attention to the class lecture, so it’s nice to have minor distractions that require minimal thinking as an outlet for my extra attention. In many aspects of my life I have already attempted to multitask in the least harmful way possible, such as listening to some non-distracting instrumental music while I study. Since I can’t reasonably keep 100% focused on an hour-long lecture, I’m glad there are ways to multitask without becoming entirely distracted.

By: M.Gambs

M.Gambs — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:53:52 +0000

I really enjoyed this post because it made me feel less guilty about the hours I have spent doodling in Economics class! Who would have known that all those long run equilibrium curves I turned into sweeping tidal waves with stick-figure surfers riding on top of them were actually helping me remember what was going on during the lecture. In this article you mentioned that doodling, not drawing or making art, can improve recall because you are engaged in the lecture. I wonder where the line between art and doodle is drawn; how much attention can be devoted to doodling before it becomes just as distracting as day dreaming in class?

By: Sean Downing

Sean Downing — Wed, 01 May 2013 01:09:30 +0000

I found it interesting that you specifically mentioned that these findings only apply to doodling, as opposed to drawing. I know a lot of artistic people who line their notebooks with beautiful, detailed, and often intricate drawings, and I wonder if drawing those during lectures would have a detrimental effect similar to watching television or daydreaming.

By: Mallory Tyler

Mallory Tyler — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:01:16 +0000

I feel like I only doodle in class to stay awake when I get bored or when I already am distracted from the lecture. This article is making me think that even though my style of doodling doesn’t help me remember things any better than normal, maybe I can change how I doodle to help me focus and remember class material better. Maybe if I doodled about what was happening in class or if i just embellished my notes with doodles, then maybe I would remember things better.

By: Ian Kowalok

Ian Kowalok — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:29:26 +0000

This is a wonderful idea and a very interesting study. I suppose it’s possible that one day teachers will leave little areas on the sides of worksheets for the students to doodle on, assuming the hypothesis becomes more conclusive. The only problem I can see is that it is far too easy to become overly attached to one’s doodles and then pay attention to them to the exclusion of all else. This is something I’m prone to do and then I accidentally tune out the teacher’s voice. It’s not as if a teacher could tell off a student for making their doodles too precise or artistic, especially if the drawing was the teacher’s idea in the first place. On the whole, however, I feel much more vindicated in my own random sketches on all of my papers.

By: nicole01123

nicole01123 — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:51:40 +0000

I am a serial doodler, so this post immediately caught my attention. I am not sure, though, that I entirely believe the results of the study and what it is trying to imply. For one, from personal experience, I know that doodling most definitely does NOT help attention in class. I like to pretend that it does because it is something that I truly enjoy doing. However, after sketching yet another back-of-head profile, I am often disgruntled to find that I have no idea of how we arrived at the current topic of discussion. I have, consequently, turned to doodling only if I desperately need something to keep my attention focused to resist the temptation of a warm room or a teacher’s soothing voice. I believe that this difference between the experiment and my personal experience can be accounted for by the fact that when I doodle, I am creating a novel image. In the study, on the other hand, they were coloring something that had already been created for them. Consequently there was nothing in their activity to distract from the task of listening to the phone call. I do not believe these results are truly relevant because I would argue that this fill-in-the-shape variety of doodling is not what most students do. Nonetheless, it is interesting that a more passive form of the common doodle aids in memory (I would imagine that it has something to do with the creation of a more complex network in which to couch the given information). Perhaps, the study instead of suggesting the benefits of doodling might instead encourage students to bring in their favorite childhood coloring book to class?

By: Psych 105 Student

Psych 105 Student — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:08:47 +0000

Oh I remember hearing something similar to this when I was in 9th grade!
Your post instantly reminded me of myself during my biology class: I would doodle constantly.
My grade in the class always remained high while my written notes always remained splattered with doodles and scribbles.
Sometimes, however, I get carried away, and they’d often turn into higher-quality doodles.
Most often though, they were simply shading in the side of my lined sheet of paper and rubbing my pencil lead down to a nub.
I can agree otherwise, however, that multitasking is not the best strategy for studying. I tried listening to music while studying and found I could not retain a thing. Even when my mother is talking to me in the car when I am plugged into my music I find it hard to remember the conversation!

By: Nghiem Tran

Nghiem Tran — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:47:19 +0000

This is really relevant. I know that I tend to start doodling when I can feel myself falling asleep in class. Are there other activities that could increase our attention over time?