Andrade Doodling

Question 1

What is the working memory model?

Answer 1

Cognitive system with a limited capacity that is responsible for temporarily
holding information available for processing

Question 2

What is central executive?

Answer 2

• Attentional system which is involved in decision making for incoming information, i.e. decides which information is attended to
• Dual tasks
• Only 4 inputs at a time from various different sources

Question 3

What is attention?

Answer 3

Concentration of mental effort on a particular stimulus

Question 4

What is divided attention?

Answer 4

Ability to split mental effort between two or more simultaneous tasks (dual tasks), i.e. driving a car and talking to a passenger

Easier to do when tasks are simple, well practiced and automatic, when they are from different sensory input (auditory and visual)

Primary task is driving and additional task is called concurrent task because it is happening at the same time

Question 5

What is selective/focused attention?

Answer 5

Picking out of a particular input from a mass of information

Question 6

What is the difference between attention and concentration?

Answer 6

Attention is an on and off activity and we can choose to pay attention to something or not. One can pay attention to several activities at any given time.

Concentration is the ability to give something our undivided attention to the exclusion of other distractions. The process of paying attention for any
length of time on an activity or object is referred to as concentration. Concentration has levels or degrees though it is hard to measure these levels.

Question 7

What is doodling?

Answer 7

Aimlessly sketching patterns and figures unrelated to the primary task

Question 8

What is daydreaming?

Answer 8

A mildly altered state of consciousness

A sense of being “lost in our thoughts”, typically positive ones,

Detachment from our environment

Question 9

How does doodling aid concentration?

Answer 9

Doodling aids concentration by reducing daydreaming so that you stay focused

Based on working memory model (doodling concurrent task, unlike daydreaming)

doodling may help maintain arousal by giving you something physical to do while you think and improve performance by enhancing attention on the primary task

Question 10

How is daydreaming linked to boredom?

Answer 10

Daydreaming uses important cognitive processing resources (central executive) and is the solution to boredom. (Linked to high arousal when bored)

so inhibits performance on tasks that use this resource, by moving concentration away from the primary task

Question 11

Psychology being investigated

Answer 11

Attention

Working memory model=short term memory

Question 12

Aim of the study

Answer 12

To investigate whether doodling aids concentration by raising arousal and enhancing focused attention on the primary task

To investigate whether doodling assisted information processing by enabling people to attend more effectively to the boring task, enhancing their memory
of it

Question 13

Who are the participants?

Answer 13

40 members of Applied psychology Unit at University of Plymouth, recruited from the general population

They volunteered for a different study but were recruited via opportunity sampling

Aged between: 18 and 55

Paid: small honorarium for taking part

Randomly assigned to control (N=20, 2 male) and doodling group (N=20, 3 male)