No Apologies for a Life of Doodling

I doodle all the time—in meetings, on the phone, during student presentations in class. I have doodled for as long as I’ve been conscious, through elementary school, high school, college and grad school. I have sets of things I like to draw—fountain pens, shoes, leafy vines—and hosts of “meaningless” geometric designs that appeal to me. I also draw things or persons in the room. I was always a good student, although I was taught to feel ashamed of my apparent inability to focus, to prevent myself from doodling.

A few years ago, I decided to flout the accepted wisdom that it is wrong to doodle. I started to invite my students to doodle (and, if they liked, to knit or otherwise occupy their hands during class). I decided that it had not adversely affected my own learning and so it was unlikely adversely to affect theirs.

Instituting a “go ahead and doodle” policy didn’t solve all problems in my classes—students can get carried away, drawing comics with which they distract others. I also need to be more keenly aware of when (during which activities in class) it's appropriate for students to doodle--when I am calling on them to remember what I am saying--and when it is better for them to be engaged in some other way. On the whole, however, I noticed that my classes were somewhat better behaved and I noticed that achievement didn’t slip.

I didn’t think of this as research, just as common sense, and I didn’t bother to measure the effects of the change in my classes. Maybe I should have. Recent research shows that doodling can assist memory recall (see below). Finally, we doodlers can stop castigating ourselves for an activity that, in fact, may help us to sort out our memories and handle masses of detailed information:

Do Doodle: Doodling Can Help Memory Recall

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2009) — Doodling while listening can help with
remembering details, rather than implying that the mind is wandering as is the
common perception. According to a study published today in the journal Applied
Cognitive Psychology, subjects given a doodling task while listening to a dull
phone message had a 29% improved recall compared to their non-doodling
counterparts.

40 members of the research panel of the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge were asked to listen to a two and a half minute tape giving several names of people and places, and were told to write down only the names of people going to a party. 20 of the participants were asked to shade in shapes on a piece of paper at the same time, but paying no attention to neatness. Participants were not asked to doodle naturally so that they would not become self-conscious. None of the participants were told it was a memory test.

After the tape had finished, all participants in the study were asked to recall the eight names of the party-goers which they were asked to write down, as well as eight additional place names which were included as incidental information. The doodlers recalled on average 7.5 names of people and places compared to only 5.8 by the non-doodlers.

"If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream," said study researcher Professor Jackie Andrade, Ph.D., of the School of Psychology, University of Plymouth. "Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task."

"In psychology, tests of memory or attention will often use a second task to
selectively block a particular mental process. If that process is important for
the main cognitive task then performance will be impaired. My research shows
that beneficial effects of secondary tasks, such as doodling, on concentration
may offset the effects of selective blockade," added Andrade. "This study
suggests that in everyday life doodling may be something we do because it helps
to keep us on track with a boring task, rather than being an unnecessary
distraction that we should try to resist doing."

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226210039.htm