Most of us tend to forget things, information and try to note it down. But instead of writing, drawing things may help you remember it better, finds an interesting study.
The study showed that drawing helps to create a more cohesive memory trace that better integrates visual, motor and semantic information.
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‘Draw things you want to remember instead of penning it down as it enhances memory.’
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"We pitted drawing against a number of other known encoding strategies, but drawing always came out on top," said the lead author, Jeffrey Wammes, doctoral student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
The findings showed a significant recall advantage for words that were drawn as compared to those that were written. Also, the participants often recalled more than twice as many drawn than written words.
![Obama Enjoys Doodling]( "Obama Enjoys Doodling")
Barack Obama is also fond of doodling much like Ronald Regan before him, confessed the 50-year-old U.S President in an interview conducted by WJLA on Virginia Beach about his tendency.
"We labeled this benefit 'the drawing effect,' which refers to this distinct advantage of drawing words relative to writing them out," Wammes explained.
Memory for drawn words was superior to all other alternatives.
Drawing led to better later memory performance than listing physical characteristics, creating mental images, and viewing pictures of the objects depicted by the words.
In addition, the quality of the drawings people made did not seem to matter, suggesting that everyone could benefit from this memory strategy, regardless of their artistic talent.
"In line with this, we showed that people still gained a huge advantage in later memory, even when they had just four seconds to draw their picture," Wammes noted.
However, in variations of the experiment in which students drew the words repeatedly, or added visual details to the written letters, such as shading or other doodles, the results remained unchanged.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, presented student participants with a list of simple, easily drawn words, such as "apple".
The students were given 40 seconds to either draw the word or write it out repeatedly. They were then given a filler task of classifying musical tones to facilitate the retention process.
Finally, the researchers asked students to freely recall as many words as possible from the initial list in just 60 seconds.
The researchers are currently trying to determine why this memory benefit is so potent, and how widely it can be applied to other types of information.
Source: IANS
Obama Enjoys Doodling
Barack Obama is also fond of doodling much like Ronald Regan before him, confessed the 50-year-old U.S President in an interview conducted by WJLA on Virginia Beach about his tendency.
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"We labeled this benefit 'the drawing effect,' which refers to this distinct advantage of drawing words relative to writing them out," Wammes explained.
Memory for drawn words was superior to all other alternatives.
Drawing led to better later memory performance than listing physical characteristics, creating mental images, and viewing pictures of the objects depicted by the words.
In addition, the quality of the drawings people made did not seem to matter, suggesting that everyone could benefit from this memory strategy, regardless of their artistic talent.
"In line with this, we showed that people still gained a huge advantage in later memory, even when they had just four seconds to draw their picture," Wammes noted.
However, in variations of the experiment in which students drew the words repeatedly, or added visual details to the written letters, such as shading or other doodles, the results remained unchanged.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, presented student participants with a list of simple, easily drawn words, such as "apple".
The students were given 40 seconds to either draw the word or write it out repeatedly. They were then given a filler task of classifying musical tones to facilitate the retention process.
Finally, the researchers asked students to freely recall as many words as possible from the initial list in just 60 seconds.
The researchers are currently trying to determine why this memory benefit is so potent, and how widely it can be applied to other types of information.
Source: IANS
New Advanced Camera Pen Assesses Patients with Dementia Taking Drawing Tests
The researchers from the US noticed that individuals with Parkinson's tend to draw smaller clocks and took more time creating them.
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 Drawing a 'Body Map' may be Integral for Fostering Infants' Sense of Their Own BodiesBody maps develop early in life and may be integral for fostering infants' sense of their own bodies, as well as the ability to connect and learn from others. | Advertisement
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