I went into the wrong field. In my field, public health, research projects are huge, costly and involved thousands of people. In psychology, you can find do research with just a handful of people and few resources. That's brilliant. Here's an example that involves improving memory through "mindless drawing:"
IN the study, 40 people were asked to listen to a tape for two and a half minutes and (after) to remember the names of people in the story. Then, they were also asked (but not told beforehand) about the places in the story. Half the people were given a piece of paper with little shapes to fill in and half were not. The idea was to see if "doodling" mattered for recall. What they found was that the "doodlers" remember more places than the non-doodlers, leaving the researchers to conclude that doodling kept the listeners more engaged.
I beg to differ. I have seen some pretty elaborate doodlers and maintain that if the doodle is more of a drawing, then the person would be distracted. In this study, it wasn't "free doodling" that was tested, but mindlessly shading in shapes. Free doodling (in my experience) can be quite distracting as you work on a drawing and make decisions about what to draw next (as anyone who has taught in grade school knows when they call on the doodling kid to receive a "huh?" in return).
What does seem to help memory and recall is the "mindless drawing" used in the study (shading in shapes, for example). That seems to work to keep the individual more present to the situation and leads to better recall.
So if you want to remember a conversation, get your pin out and just mindlessly draw and shade in little circles (source: Andrade J. Applied Cognitive Psychology. March 2009).
Boasts memory?? Are you trying to sat boosts memory?