Does Doodling Boost Memory? Insights from Jackie Andrade’s 2010 Study

Introduction

The long‑standing belief that doodling is a classroom nuisance is challenged by a 2010 experiment conducted by Jackie Andrade at the University of Plymouth. The study asked a simple yet powerful question: Does doodling impair attention and memory, or can it actually enhance performance on a primary task?

What Is Doodling?

• Definition: Absence‑minded drawing of patterns or figures that are unrelated to the task at hand.
• Common perception: Teachers often scold students for doodling, assuming it diverts attention.
• Psychological angle: Doodling occupies part of the brain’s information‑processing capacity, potentially creating a divided‑attention scenario.

Research Aim

Andrade wanted to determine whether the concurrent task of doodling (a visual‑spatial activity) would: 1. Impair performance on a primary auditory listening task, or 2. Enhance performance by raising arousal and reducing day‑dreaming, thereby improving focus and memory.

Methodology

Participants

• 40 volunteers (aged 18‑55) from a university participant panel.
• Recruited opportunistically after completing an unrelated study; paid a small fee.
• Split into two equal groups: Doodling group (17 F, 3 M) and Control group (18 F, 2 M).

Design

• Independent‑measures (between‑subjects) laboratory experiment.
• Primary task: listen to a 2.5‑minute monotonous telephone invitation and later recall information.
• Concurrent task (doodling condition): shade alternating squares and circles on an A4 sheet while listening.
• Control condition: write answers on plain lined paper, no shading.

Materials & Procedure

• Standardised instructions told participants to note the names of party‑goers only.
• The phone script contained 8 party‑goer names, 8 place names, and several filler details.
• After listening, participants completed:
• Monitoring task – list party‑goer names (explicitly instructed).
• Recall task – list place names (surprise, incidental memory test).
• Task order was counter‑balanced across participants.
• Scoring: correct names minus false alarms (non‑party names).

Results

• Doodling group recalled a mean of 7.8 party‑goer names (SD ≈ 0.3) with 1 false alarm.
• Control group recalled a mean of 7.1 names with 5 false alarms.
• Overall memory score (party + place names) was 7.5 for doodlers vs 5.8 for controls – a 29 % advantage.
• Participants in the doodling condition also shaded an average of 36.3 shapes (range 3‑110), confirming engagement with the concurrent task.

Interpretation

1. Attention‑enhancement hypothesis – Doodling may keep the brain aroused, preventing day‑dreaming and allowing better encoding of auditory information.
2. Deeper‑processing hypothesis – The act of shading could trigger more elaborate encoding strategies, boosting recall directly.
3. The study could not distinguish between these explanations because day‑dreaming was not measured.

Strengths & Limitations

• Strengths: Controlled laboratory setting, clear operationalisation of doodling, counter‑balanced memory tests.
• Limitations: Small, mostly female sample; reliance on self‑report for boredom; no physiological or neuro‑imaging data to verify arousal levels.

Practical Implications

• For students: a brief, low‑effort doodling activity (e.g., shading shapes) during monotonous lectures may improve concentration and memory.
• For educators: rather than outright banning doodling, consider allowing structured visual tasks to maintain engagement.

Conclusion

Jackie Andrade’s 2010 experiment provides empirical evidence that doodling does not necessarily harm performance. When the primary task is auditory and the doodling task is visual‑spatial, the concurrent activity can actually enhance attention and memory, likely by keeping arousal at an optimal level and reducing mind‑wandering.

Doodling, when used as a simple visual‑spatial task, can improve focus and memory on unrelated auditory information, challenging the myth that it is always a distraction.