Developmental origins of cognitive offloading.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Armitage KL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7341915 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundCognitive offloading is the use of physical action to reduce the cognitive demands of a task. Everyday memory relies heavily on this practice; for example, when we write down to-be-remembered information or use diaries, alerts, and reminders to trigger delayed intentions. A key goal of recent research has been to investigate the processes that trigger cognitive offloading. This research has demonstrated that individuals decide whether or not to offload based on a potentially erroneous metacognitive evaluation of their mental abilities. Therefore, improving the accuracy of metacognitive evaluations may help to optimise offloading behaviour. However, previous studies typically measure participants' use of an explicitly instructed offloading strategy, in contrast to everyday life where offloading strategies must often be generated spontaneously.ResultsWe administered a computer-based task requiring participants to remember delayed intentions. One group of participants was explicitly instructed on a method for setting external reminders; another was not. The latter group spontaneously set reminders but did so less often than the instructed group. Offloading improved performance in both groups. Crucially, metacognition (confidence in unaided memory ability) guided both instructed and spontaneous offloading: Participants in both groups set more reminders when they were less confident (regardless of actual memory ability).ConclusionsThese results show that the link between metacognition and cognitive offloading holds even when offloading strategies need to be spontaneously generated. Thus, metacognitive interventions are potentially able to alter offloading behaviour, without requiring offloading strategies to be explicitly instructed.
| S-EPMC6889107 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Cognitive offloading refers to our reliance on the external environment in order to reduce cognitive demand. For instance, people write notes on paper or smartphones in order not to forget shopping lists or upcoming appointments. A plausible hypothesis is that such offloading relies on metamemory - our confidence in our future memory performance. However, this hypothesis has not been directly tested, and it remains unclear when and how people use external sources to aid their encoding and retrieval of information. In four experiments, here we asked participants to learn word pairs and decide whether to offload some of the pairs by "saving" them on a computer. In the memory test, they had the opportunity to use this saved information on half of trials. Participants adaptively saved the most difficult items and used this offloaded information to boost their memory performance. Crucially, participants' confidence judgments about their memory predicted their decisions to use the saved information, indicating that cognitive offloading is associated with metacognitive evaluation about memory performance. These findings were accommodated by a Bayesian computational model in which beliefs about the performance boost gained from using offloaded information are negatively coupled to an evaluation of memory ability. Together our findings highlight a close link between metamemory and cognitive offloading.
| S-EPMC6838677 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Modern technical tools such as tablets allow for the temporal externalisation of working memory processes (i.e., cognitive offloading). Although such externalisations support immediate performance on different tasks, little is known about potential long-term consequences of offloading behaviour. In the current set of experiments, we studied the relationship between cognitive offloading and subsequent memory for the offloaded information as well as the interplay of this relationship with the goal to acquire new memory representations. Our participants solved the Pattern Copy Task, in which we manipulated the costs of cognitive offloading and the awareness of a subsequent memory test. In Experiment 1 (N = 172), we showed that increasing the costs for offloading induces reduced offloading behaviour. This reduction in offloading came along with lower immediate task performance but more accurate memory in an unexpected test. In Experiment 2 (N = 172), we confirmed these findings and observed that offloading behaviour remained detrimental for subsequent memory performance when participants were aware of the upcoming memory test. Interestingly, Experiment 3 (N = 172) showed that cognitive offloading is not detrimental for long-term memory formation under all circumstances. Those participants who were forced to offload maximally but were aware of the memory test could almost completely counteract the negative impact of offloading on memory. Our experiments highlight the importance of the explicit goal to acquire new memory representations when relying on technical tools as offloading did have detrimental effects on memory without such a goal.
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Project description:Recognition of rotated images can challenge visual systems. Humans often diminish the load of cognitive tasks employing bodily actions (cognitive offloading). To investigate these phenomena from a comparative perspective, we trained eight dogs (Canis familiaris) to discriminate between bidimensional shapes. We then tested the dogs with rotated versions of the same shapes, while measuring their accuracy and head tilts. Although generalization to rotated stimuli challenged dogs (overall accuracy: 55%), three dogs performed differently from chance level with rotated stimuli. The amplitude of stimulus rotation did not influence dogs' performance. Interestingly, dogs tilted their head following the direction and amplitude of rotated stimuli. These small head movements did not influence their performance. Hence, we show that dogs might be capable of recognizing rotated 2D objects, but they do not use a cognitive offloading strategy in this task. This work paves the way to further investigation of cognitive offloading in non-human species.
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