Why is my listening comprehension better when I do the dishes?
January 27, 2021 3:17 PM Subscribe
Curious if any neuroscience people might know why I process material aurally better when I'm doing some mindless activity.
My partner can lie on the couch and listen to a podcast for hours- not doing anything, just lying there, listening.
I find this baffling. When I've tried to do that, it doesn't work, at all. My mind quickly starts wondering, and I cannot take in any of the information, no matter how entertaining the content might be.
But if I'm washing dishes, sweeping, doing a jigsaw puzzle, driving, taking a walk, or some other type of activity that takes up just a little of my focus - then I am suddenly able to listen and absorb any information aurally, even if it's kinda academic/dry.
I've done a little Googling, but all that's revealed is that I'm not alone here - but I'm still not clear on what exactly is going in my brain?
Relatedly, I teach at the college level, and so I'm also curious what this might mean in terms of pedagogy. I generally try to avoid long lectures, and to pair lectures with frequently changing slides, but I wonder if there is more I might be doing to help students with brains like my own. Thanks!
My partner can lie on the couch and listen to a podcast for hours- not doing anything, just lying there, listening.
I find this baffling. When I've tried to do that, it doesn't work, at all. My mind quickly starts wondering, and I cannot take in any of the information, no matter how entertaining the content might be.
But if I'm washing dishes, sweeping, doing a jigsaw puzzle, driving, taking a walk, or some other type of activity that takes up just a little of my focus - then I am suddenly able to listen and absorb any information aurally, even if it's kinda academic/dry.
I've done a little Googling, but all that's revealed is that I'm not alone here - but I'm still not clear on what exactly is going in my brain?
Relatedly, I teach at the college level, and so I'm also curious what this might mean in terms of pedagogy. I generally try to avoid long lectures, and to pair lectures with frequently changing slides, but I wonder if there is more I might be doing to help students with brains like my own. Thanks!
I have a very similar issue, and keep a few fidget items around when I need to focus on someone talking. Grain of salt, but I've read that it's an ADHD symptom, now I've never been diagnosed so this is hearsay, but might be worth looking into?
posted by Carillon at 3:22 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 3:22 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
because sitting and listening to something passively, by itself is boring, and your body's fidget-energy will make your mind wander. let your body's energy be released by some sort of movement, and it stops hampering your ability to concentrate. You don't need to be ADHD for this to be true, just be someone whose mind is usually going fast.
posted by fingersandtoes at 3:31 PM on January 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by fingersandtoes at 3:31 PM on January 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
IIRC, there's a theory that some people have to "fidget" so it can associate knowledge with physical movements.
Maybe order one of the silent "fidget gadgets" off amazon. They got both the clicky-clacky types and the nearly silent but tactile ones, then sit in the back, and listen, but keep your hand/hands busy.
I think some people deal with this by taking notes. I know I used to, with drafting ink pens, no less.
posted by kschang at 3:42 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Maybe order one of the silent "fidget gadgets" off amazon. They got both the clicky-clacky types and the nearly silent but tactile ones, then sit in the back, and listen, but keep your hand/hands busy.
I think some people deal with this by taking notes. I know I used to, with drafting ink pens, no less.
posted by kschang at 3:42 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Is it possible that you have ADHD? Fidgeting with something to improve listening comprehension is a classic ADHD management strategy.
posted by suetanvil at 3:48 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by suetanvil at 3:48 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's a name for the phenomenon, I'm trying to find it now.
The brain processes potentially "nervous" or anxious energy, freeing up space in another area, so you can use memory retention or other processing (like verbal), while balancing physical habits.
In many ways it's possible it's the opposite of ADHD- you may be an uncommon and fortunate combination auditory/physical learner. Cool 🙂.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:54 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
The brain processes potentially "nervous" or anxious energy, freeing up space in another area, so you can use memory retention or other processing (like verbal), while balancing physical habits.
In many ways it's possible it's the opposite of ADHD- you may be an uncommon and fortunate combination auditory/physical learner. Cool 🙂.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:54 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think this is fairly common - a lot of office people I know keep fidgety objects at their desk or in their pockets for meetings, and the rest of us doodled our way through education and employment. (my college lecture notes are like, 80% drawings of little sharks swimming through the night sky)
I was actually thinking about this the other day because for me the physical activity of taking notes keeps my hands busy and helps me focus and memorize information, and now in the age of laptops (I'm not super old, but most people couldn't afford a laptop when I was in college) I wonder if that connection from your brain to your hand has been changed by the act of typing vs printing by hand. I was a diligent note taker, though I rarely ever reviewed my notes.
I wonder if you could encourage students to note-take by hand rather than digitally for people like you? When I was in high school we all wrapped our textbooks in kraft paper every semester so we could draw on them. While I'm sure that's more about the school having their textbooks ruined than encouraging doodling while listening, it might have done both!
posted by euphoria066 at 4:10 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was actually thinking about this the other day because for me the physical activity of taking notes keeps my hands busy and helps me focus and memorize information, and now in the age of laptops (I'm not super old, but most people couldn't afford a laptop when I was in college) I wonder if that connection from your brain to your hand has been changed by the act of typing vs printing by hand. I was a diligent note taker, though I rarely ever reviewed my notes.
I wonder if you could encourage students to note-take by hand rather than digitally for people like you? When I was in high school we all wrapped our textbooks in kraft paper every semester so we could draw on them. While I'm sure that's more about the school having their textbooks ruined than encouraging doodling while listening, it might have done both!
posted by euphoria066 at 4:10 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
The scientific evidence on this is surprisingly weak, apparently it's hard to figure out what's going on with fidgeting at a neurological level.
But as other say this is not particularly unusual. It is associated with ADHD, but it's more common than proper ADHD so I wouldn't worry about it. I have this for certain things but not others, for me it seems to be contextual and related to where I started to learn about the information and what situations I might use it in. Memory in general is very contextual so you always remember stuff better if you learned it in a state similar to your current one.
posted by JZig at 4:30 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
But as other say this is not particularly unusual. It is associated with ADHD, but it's more common than proper ADHD so I wouldn't worry about it. I have this for certain things but not others, for me it seems to be contextual and related to where I started to learn about the information and what situations I might use it in. Memory in general is very contextual so you always remember stuff better if you learned it in a state similar to your current one.
posted by JZig at 4:30 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Relatedly, I teach at the college level, and so I'm also curious what this might mean in terms of pedagogy. I generally try to avoid long lectures, and to pair lectures with frequently changing slides, but I wonder if there is more I might be doing to help students with brains like my own.
Some encouragement would be nice that they aren't broken or misbehaving or doing anything wrong if they're doodling or doing low-key things that help them focus while you're talking. I got called out for this more than once in college and it had the opposite effect of what they were probably hoping for, which is that it made me think I was broken and then proceeded to make college 1000x harder since I was then trying focusing on "behaving" as if I was a 1st grader again instead of actually learning like an adult. Another professor letting me know I was actually OK would have helped a lot.
As to what's going on mentally, this blog post mentions that doodling could be a stress-relief valve and links to this study. I am betting that the specific activity (doodling, sweeping, dishes, whatever) doesn't matter as much as I think it physically hurts to focus our brains on one thing at a time more than we all like to admit.
posted by bleep at 4:53 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Some encouragement would be nice that they aren't broken or misbehaving or doing anything wrong if they're doodling or doing low-key things that help them focus while you're talking. I got called out for this more than once in college and it had the opposite effect of what they were probably hoping for, which is that it made me think I was broken and then proceeded to make college 1000x harder since I was then trying focusing on "behaving" as if I was a 1st grader again instead of actually learning like an adult. Another professor letting me know I was actually OK would have helped a lot.
As to what's going on mentally, this blog post mentions that doodling could be a stress-relief valve and links to this study. I am betting that the specific activity (doodling, sweeping, dishes, whatever) doesn't matter as much as I think it physically hurts to focus our brains on one thing at a time more than we all like to admit.
posted by bleep at 4:53 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
This (undergrad?) paper is a general discussion of past research about doodling and retention of information and an experimental attempt to prove a “daydream reduction” theory. The References section at the end should point you to some interesting studies. An “optimal stimulation” theory exists as well. All I know from personal experience is that my doodling or fidgeting has to be truly mindless so I can use all my mental/focus energy to attend to what I am hearing. So, instead of drawing a dog next to a tree or something, I do much better drawing simple triangles and circles that intersect, and then coloring in the shapes in a checkerboard pattern. It has to feel more mechanical than creative.
posted by DB Cooper at 5:03 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by DB Cooper at 5:03 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Again, no official answers, but I knit my way through grad school (OT school, so if anyone should be accepting, it was that program, and I consciously gave cues that I was paying attention) for this same reason. A lot of my classmates' minds would wander right over to Facebook.
Knitting was good for me because most of the time my hands could do it without my eyes being involved. That, for me, is a key element for in-class stuff.
posted by DebetEsse at 5:22 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Knitting was good for me because most of the time my hands could do it without my eyes being involved. That, for me, is a key element for in-class stuff.
posted by DebetEsse at 5:22 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
So, in the theories (which are yes, scientifically soft, as theories can be) of learning modalities, this phenomenon can sometimes be referred to as tactile learning, and what you may be experiencing is passive or secondary tactile learning.
This is a quick link, but I think some deeper information may be found with more scholarly browsing.
https://blog.edmentum.com/kinesthetic-visual-auditory-tactile-oh-my-what-are-learning-modalities-and-how-can-you-incorporate
"There are four main modalities educators often consider: kinesthetic (moving), visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), and tactile (touching). Most students can learn through any of the following, but that doesn't mean they don't have preferences (as we all do) to make instruction more meaningful and engaging."
No current hard science or conclusions, but hopefully these key terms help in broadening knowledge/perspective on potential new ways of learning.
posted by firstdaffodils at 5:43 PM on January 27, 2021
This is a quick link, but I think some deeper information may be found with more scholarly browsing.
https://blog.edmentum.com/kinesthetic-visual-auditory-tactile-oh-my-what-are-learning-modalities-and-how-can-you-incorporate
"There are four main modalities educators often consider: kinesthetic (moving), visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), and tactile (touching). Most students can learn through any of the following, but that doesn't mean they don't have preferences (as we all do) to make instruction more meaningful and engaging."
No current hard science or conclusions, but hopefully these key terms help in broadening knowledge/perspective on potential new ways of learning.
posted by firstdaffodils at 5:43 PM on January 27, 2021
My biology teacher didn't care what his students did, so I drew fashion designs during his classes while listening to him. Occasionally he'd say something interesting, and I'd put my hand up and ask for more information or clarification. Maths - the opposite, and he went so slow that I was bored and would daydream and by the time he'd moved onto something new, I missed key information but really couldn't ask him to back over it because I'd know he'd already covered it repetitively and in excruciating detail. I was on the verge of failing that class when he kindly gave me the first (and only) hour long catch-up private tutorial. Next exam, I was top of the class. I was capable (and to be fair, so was he) - it was the pace of the class that was so wrong for me.
So when I did my undergrad degree, I did it online in my own time with a final grade of 6.9/7 overall result.
I have ADHD and autism.
My most original ideas come to me when I'm in the shower or walking - I have no distractions and I'm completely in my head (very careful at road crosdings).
I think it would be interesting if you asked your students what sorts of learning styles/practices they find they best engage with - some will love inquiry style classes where you tell them what the topic is, ask them to form groups with a scribe, and after a short time, 15 minuted maybe, have the scribe from each team share what the group came up with. Less pressure on individual students to say what they might think is silly.
Or you might try a flipped lesson (which I believe is them covering the meat of the lesson at home before it begins so that you can have more interaction with the topic during class). If you can justify a reason for them to move out of their seats, say to line them up in height to discuss bell curves and statistics for example.
Or have volunteers perform a social experiment, I remember one psych class where about 10 of us had headbands with signs on our head identifying out status: I was very important person, and my mate was: extremely funny. We were to react to the signs we saw but we didn't know our own. My mate was initially very frustrated that everything he said was laughed at, but by the end, he was being really witty. I was shocked that people were listening to me(!!!) But after a short time, I took advantage of it, spoke for longer and used more complex ideas.
I hope this is helpful - my meds haven't kicked in yet.
posted by b33j at 6:09 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
So when I did my undergrad degree, I did it online in my own time with a final grade of 6.9/7 overall result.
I have ADHD and autism.
My most original ideas come to me when I'm in the shower or walking - I have no distractions and I'm completely in my head (very careful at road crosdings).
I think it would be interesting if you asked your students what sorts of learning styles/practices they find they best engage with - some will love inquiry style classes where you tell them what the topic is, ask them to form groups with a scribe, and after a short time, 15 minuted maybe, have the scribe from each team share what the group came up with. Less pressure on individual students to say what they might think is silly.
Or you might try a flipped lesson (which I believe is them covering the meat of the lesson at home before it begins so that you can have more interaction with the topic during class). If you can justify a reason for them to move out of their seats, say to line them up in height to discuss bell curves and statistics for example.
Or have volunteers perform a social experiment, I remember one psych class where about 10 of us had headbands with signs on our head identifying out status: I was very important person, and my mate was: extremely funny. We were to react to the signs we saw but we didn't know our own. My mate was initially very frustrated that everything he said was laughed at, but by the end, he was being really witty. I was shocked that people were listening to me(!!!) But after a short time, I took advantage of it, spoke for longer and used more complex ideas.
I hope this is helpful - my meds haven't kicked in yet.
posted by b33j at 6:09 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
The late psychologist Seth Roberts believed that he learned better when he walked on a treadmill while studying Chinese. I think he had a series of blog posts about this and related topics (I linked to one such blog post here).
posted by alex1965 at 7:08 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by alex1965 at 7:08 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
This describes me. I most likely do not have ADD/ADHD, but I have many autistic traits.
On another note, I have been despairing of my inability to catch up on my podcasts, since I am not commuting. Your post made me realize I could listen while washing dishes or chopping veggies, so thanks for that!
posted by matildaben at 10:17 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
On another note, I have been despairing of my inability to catch up on my podcasts, since I am not commuting. Your post made me realize I could listen while washing dishes or chopping veggies, so thanks for that!
posted by matildaben at 10:17 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
as another person with ADHD, a wandering mind is only part of my issue. in fact, if I’m not listening to a podcast while doing the dishes (or an audiobook while painting, or half-watching something while doing laundry, or reading the internet while eating, etc etc etc) I feel frantic and panicky. even the idea of just listing to a podcast & doing nothing else (!!) gives me a jolt of dread. my meds don’t really help with it. but I don’t see it as a problem — we get stuff done and learn stuff too!
posted by changeling at 10:43 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by changeling at 10:43 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have often noticed that if I am doing a task that requires a lot of concentration and I am listening to something at the same time that I'll remember what I was listening to sometimes years later. There is a wall in my garden that I built several years ago, I can still remember the radio program I was listening to when I built it. Likewise I have several small carpentry pieces that I made and I can remember what I was listening to when I made them. I have been thinking lately how I can leverage this ability to help me learn new things.
posted by night_train at 3:17 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by night_train at 3:17 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, these are all interesting answers! I've lately wondered if I might have adult ADHD for other reasons, so that's interesting to hear (figuring that out is on my post-COVID to-do list). But yes, I'm mainly interested about why the brain might work this way, so all the links to research, however tentative, are very appreciated!
The one thing I actually like about teaching during COVID is the increased opportunity to mixup the approach to teaching - for example, all of my longer lectures are now pre-recorded, which a number of students have noted they prefer. So yes, b33j, I'm very much a proponent of the flipped classroom these days, and aim to keep this even after life is back to normal. And lunasol, I like the idea of bringing in toys for students to fidget with if needed, so thanks!
posted by coffeecat at 9:08 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
The one thing I actually like about teaching during COVID is the increased opportunity to mixup the approach to teaching - for example, all of my longer lectures are now pre-recorded, which a number of students have noted they prefer. So yes, b33j, I'm very much a proponent of the flipped classroom these days, and aim to keep this even after life is back to normal. And lunasol, I like the idea of bringing in toys for students to fidget with if needed, so thanks!
posted by coffeecat at 9:08 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by lunasol at 3:21 PM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]