Dr. Unnur Guðrún Óttarsdóttir, educator and art therapist, presents in an online webinar the lecture Enhancing Recall and Emotional Well-being Through Memory Drawing. The occasion is the findings of a memory drawing study recently published in the journal Education Sciences and in a book chapter released by Routledge.
Dr. Óttarsdóttir’s research consisted of asking 134 children and 262 adults to draw and write the meaning of words and then to recall those words after varying time periods. The study in the journal Experiments on the Efficacy of Drawing for Memorization among Adults and Children with Varying Written Word Memory Capacities: A Two-Way Crossover Design study showed that kids and adults who have trouble remembering written words can remember their drawings much better. The difference is so great that children in that group were generally able to recall their drawings about 45 times more easily than the words they had written three weeks earlier. Individuals who easily remember words also remember drawings more easily than written words in the long run, according to the findings of the research.
According to Óttarsdóttir, drawing has an emotional value, as well as being an effective memory technique. In a related study, published in the chapter Memory drawing for children who have experienced stress and/or trauma and have specific learning difficulties, indications were found that drawing facilitated the processing of emotions associated with difficult experiences and/or trauma. Emotional safety is an important foundation for drawing to be used to facilitate learning and emotional well-being. In this related research, Unnur developed art educational therapy (AET), where artistic expression is used for both educational and therapeutic purposes.
Detailed information about the memory drawing study can be found in Unnur's article, published in open access in the journal Education Sciences, at the following URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/5/470 and https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14050470
Unnur will deliver the webinars on the findings of the research:
Monday, 30 Dec 2024, 8:00 PM (London time - GMT)
Friday, 10 Jan 2025, 12:00 PM (London time - GMT)
References:
Óttarsdóttir, U. G. 2024 Experiments on the Efficacy of Drawing for Memorization among Adults and Children with Varying Written Word Memory Capacities: A Two-Way Crossover Design. Education Sciences, 14(5), 470. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14050470
Óttarsdóttir, U. G. 2024 Memory drawing for children who have experienced stress and/or trauma and have specific learning difficulties. In: M. Cao, R. Hougham and S. Scoble (Eds.) Memory: shaping connections in the arts therapies (Chapter 8). Oxfordshire: Routledge.
Admission is free and open to everyone. Registration is required below:
Drawing published in: Óttarsdóttir, U. G. 2024 Memory drawing for children who have experienced stress and/or trauma and have specific learning difficulties. In: M. Cao, R. Hougham and S. Scoble (Eds.) Memory: shaping connections in the arts therapies (Chapter 8). Oxfordshire: Routledge.
