Doodle-books Can Enhance Creativity?

There was a time when three researchers designed a study to see if using a doodle-book training program could enhance kids’ creativity and original thinking.

They used two tests to measure 67 kids’ creativity before and after going through the program. Their study showed that it could be done.

The Study

Doodling And Coloring: Can They Be Used As Tools To Change Addictive Habits?

A study published in 2017 found that doodling, coloring and free drawing could make participants feel like their problem-solving skills had improved.

So…maybe do some doodling to improve self-belief or don’t in case it backfires?

More important, all of these three actions activated the reward pathways in the brain. This was true for artists and non-artists and it took only 3 minutes to happen.

The researchers believe that if the results of this pilot study are applicable to more people, then any one of these three actions—coloring, doodling or free drawing—could be used to change addictive habits which also engage the reward pathways of the brain.

So…if you are trying to change the number of cookies you eat maybe doodle before you eat that extra cookie?

The Study

Why Do People Doodle?

Based on one study, which asked 100 people why they doodle, the answer is: for many reasons.

Specifically, people used doodling for:

1. Learning (27%)

2. Focus and attention (21%)

3. Creative expression (23%)

4. Emotional release (17%)

5. Problem-solving (12%)

The Study

Doodling Trains Fine Motor and Narrative Writing Skills

One study found that doodling activities such as outlining, coloring and free-drawing can train children’s fine motor skills.

A more intriguing finding of the same study was that doodlers inserted their emotions in their doodles. Then these emotionally-charged images could be used to create simple stories. This chain of events indirectly helped the doodlers’ skill to think in writing sentences.

In sum, doodling helped the practitioners to train their motor and narrative writing skills.

The Study

The Group That Only Listened

This review is from the year 2016. It claims that doodling holds a special place in scientists’ hearts. Why would such an absentminded task, a task that some would attribute to boredom, interest the curious minds of scientists? Because scientists believe that doodling may be a way to examine the subconscious mind.

What does research have to say about doodling? It’s not an act of boredom. On the contrary, it helps with memory and recall.

The Question

Does doodling create a distraction thus impairing learning or does it minimize daydreaming and as a consequence increase concentration?

One study mentioned in the review had two groups of people listen to a conversation about the names of partygoers. One group was asked to shade pre-made squares and circles. The other group only listened to the conversation without doing anything else (that we know of…).

The doodling group recalled partygoers’ names better by 29% compared to the group that only listened.

Why? The scientists hypothesized that doodling was such a simple task that it did not turn the doodlers’ attention away from listening to the conversation about partygoers’ names. They also believed that doodling may had helped the doodlers maintain interest in the conversation, which in turn helped them remember more names.

So next time you find yourself straining to maintain attention during an important (auditory) task which cannot be postponed maybe you should try doodling.

The Study

The Group That Simply Watched

Remember that study which claimed that doodling helps with memory recall? If that study got you excited it’s time for this next one to let you down.

In this study mentioned in the same review, another scientist had one group of people doodle while a PowerPoint presentation was bombarding the participants with images. The other group simply watched the image-heavy presentation.

Guess who recalled better the images they’d seen during that PowerPoint presentation. It was the group that simply watched.

The scientists hypothesized that the two tasks, doodling and looking at images, competed with one another since both required the same cognitive resources (visual pathway neurons). Doodling in this case may have forced the doodlers to divide their attention between the two tasks, which in turn meant they had less time to look at the images.

In short, less attention and less time spent looking at the images meant worse performance when asked to recall those same images.

The Study

Can You Design Your Workspace To Make It Increase Your Creativity?

Yes you can, based on this one review anyway.

According to the review, although fun spaces with slides, swings, and funny-shaped windows look like maybe they can help enhance employees' creativity there’s no proof that they do.

Doodle spaces on the other hand…well, they can be used by employees to think about issues they are stuck on and to interact with others beyond their own team. These interactions are good because the employees can exchange valuable information and experiences.

But a more interesting observation in this review comes from Hoff and Öberg (2015). These scientists claim that doodle spaces which are fun, meaning equipped with inspiring objects such as toys (something you would find in those fun spaces mentioned above) do indeed increase creativity.

So fun spaces possibly don’t make employees more creative but fun doodle spaces do?

Why? The review claims that the employees in the doodle spaces interact with these inspiring objects at the same time they are talking and thinking.

Perhaps it has something to do with intention, justputaneyeonit.com theorizes. Doodle spaces can be fun like fun spaces are, but employees don’t go there to forget and have fun. They go there to let their minds wander.

The Study

Will your product idea be perceived as innovative if it's presented in a high-quality sketch?

In this study the scientists sought to find out the relationship between a sketch’s quality and the perceived creativity of the concept the sketch tried to present.

They explored this relationship by having four people of varying drawing abilities sketch toaster ideas. In total, they used four different toaster concepts each one drawn in a very low quality, low quality, quality and high-quality sketch.

And so which concept did people find more creative? The concept that was sketched the best.

Thus, the scientists concluded that sketching quality is important when judging the creativity of an idea and so how an idea is presented is important.

Just Put An Eye On It! liked the doodle toaster idea which was about a toaster you can doodle on one side and have your doodle imprinted on the bread.

The Study