Storing information in-the-world: Metacognition and cognitive offloading in a short-term memory task

“Human cognition often involves, as an integral part, the manipulation of the body and/or physical/social environment (e.g., Barrett, 2011; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Hutchins, 1995; Kirsh & Maglio, 1994; Pfeifer & Bongard, 2006; Zhang & Norman, 1994).”

“Human cognition often involves, as an integral part, the manipulation of the body and/or physical/social environment (e.g., Barrett, 2011; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Hutchins, 1995; Kirsh & Maglio, 1994; Pfeifer & Bongard, 2006; Zhang & Norman, 1994).”

“With respect to the memorial consequences of offloading, Sparrow et al. (2011) demonstrated that participants who typed to-be-remembered information into a computer that they expected would save the information remembered less than individuals who typed to-be-remembered information into a computer…”

“Human cognition often involves, as an integral part, the manipulation of the body and/or physical/social environment (e.g., Barrett, 2011; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Hutchins, 1995; Kirsh & Maglio, 1994; Pfeifer & Bongard, 2006; Zhang & Norman, 1994).”

“Human cognition often involves, as an integral part, the manipulation of the body and/or physical/social environment (e.g., Barrett, 2011; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Hutchins, 1995; Kirsh & Maglio, 1994; Pfeifer & Bongard, 2006; Zhang & Norman, 1994).”

“, external normalization [9], prospective memory [10], short-term memory [28], co-speech gesture [29], and co-thought gesture [13]; representative examples are given in Figure 2).”

“…note that cognitive offloading does not require elaborate interactions or a high degree of bodily activity, as some of these studies investigate rather basic questions such as under which circumstances humans prefer methods of non-mental information storage using pen and paper (Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“We chose to implement these tasks as the impact of working memory capacity on offloading has been controversially discussed in previous research (e.g., Morrison & Richmond, 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“Consistent with this hypothesis, Risko and Dunn (2015) found that in a short-term memory task, as the number of to-be-remembered items increased, the likelihood of offloading behavior increased.”

“…internal memory to guide navigation (Brügger et al., 2019); storing to-beremembered information in written form (Kelly & Risko, 2019; Lu et al., 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015), on computers (Morrison & Richmond, 2020; Storm & Stone, 2014) or via photography (Barasch et al., 2017; Henkel, 2014; Soares…”

“Still, we had expected to replicate this pattern due to the prior literature (e.g., Gilbert, 2015a; Risko & Dunn, 2015) coupled with expectations about sensible relationships between these variables.”

“It was demonstrated that people with a lower working memory capacity choose to offload more information (Ball et al., 2022; Gilbert, 2015; Meyerhoff et al., 2021; Risko & Dunn, 2015; but see also Morrison & Richmond, 2020).”

“…studies have used post-hoc questionnaires to assess influences of preexisting beliefs on decisions to offload cognition (e.g., Dunn & Risko, 2016; Risko & Dunn, 2015), preexisting beliefs were manipulated experimentally via instruction in the current experiment, which allows causal rather than…”

“For example, Gilbert (2015a) found that the offloading rate was much higher when participants had three items to remember compared with one (see Risko and Dunn, 2015 for a similar finding).”

“…demands by integrating our bodies and artifacts in our physical environment into our cognitive acts (e.g., Cherkaoui & Gilbert, 2017; Dunn & Risko, 2015; Eskritt & Ma, 2014; Gilbert, 2015; Gilbert, Bird, Carpenter, Fleming, Sachdeva, & Tsai 2018; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko, Medimorec,…”

“…by a variety of academic disciplines, including philosophy (Clark and Chalmers, 1998; Michaelian, 2012; Rowlands, 1999; Sutton, 2010), cognitive science (Risko and Dunn, 2015; Corresponding author: Richard Heersmink, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Balaclave Road, 2109, Sydney, NSW, Australia.”

“…and external spaces (e.g., transactive memory systems; Arango-Munoz, 2013; Ferguson, McLean & Risko, 2015; Gilbert, 2015; Risko, Ferguson & McLean, 2016; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Sparrow et al., 2011; Ward, 2013; Wegner, 1995; Sutton, Harris, Keil & Barnier, 2010; Storm, Stone & Benjamin, 2017).”

“Whereas they were able to replicate the experimental findings of Risko and Dunn (2015), they did not observe any correlation between memory capacity and offloading behavior; neither for the independent estimates of memory capacity, nor for unaided performance in the same task.”

“…estimated their own performance based on how accurate they think their own performance is (0–100% accuracy; Boldt & Gilbert, 2019; Gilbert, 2015b; Gilbert et al., 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015), in our experiment they estimated their performance in comparison to other students via a percentile rank.”

“This suggests that participants may set reminders in order to compensate for factors that make errors more likely (see Risko & Dunn, 2015, for a related finding in a short-term memory task).”

“Current evidence suggests that we frequently make biased and suboptimal choices when seeking to support our brain (Gilbert et al., 2019; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Virgo et al., 2017; Weis & Wiese, 2019a).”

“The use of reminders reduces cognitive demand and improves memory task performance (Gilbert, 2015; Hu et al., 2019; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“Finally, we must address that in day-to-day life, offloading behavior is likely guided by judgments and situational factors (e.g., Gilbert, 2015a, 2015b; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & OFFLOADING MEMORY 29 Gilbert, 2016).”

“…has not yet explicitly tested these proposed mechanisms; however, scholars term the general behavior of shifting or sharing responsibility for internal processing with an external aid as cognitive offloading (Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & Gilbert, 2016; Soares & Storm, 2018).”

“There is evidence that explicit external support such as writing down to-be-remembered information is co-opted intentionally when it is offered as a choice (Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“…information at the expense of less important information, even if this information could potentially be offloaded (i.e., externally recording information and memories to reduce cognitive demand; see Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & Gilbert, 2016; Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011; Storm & Stone, 2014).”

“Risko and Dunn (2015) proposed that people are motivated to o ffl oad tasks onto external memory in order to maximise accuracy (not minimise e ff ort), based on their metacognitive beliefs about the reliability of internal and external memory.”

“In contrast to Risko and Dunn (2015), however, Morrison and Richmond (2020) did not find that the choice to use and the size of the benefit obtained by offloading was related to internal memory ability (see also Brown, 2021).”

“…test had impaired memory performance in the absence of the external store compared to participants who were warned of the inaccessibility of the external store in advance (e.g., Eskritt & Ma, 2014; Kelly & Risko, 2019a, 2019b, 2021; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Lu et al., 2020, 2021; Sparrow et al., 2011).”

“It also accounts for well-established offloading tasks, such as the intention offloading task (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2020) or the task of remembering information with the support of writing it down (e.g., Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“This echoes the idea of knowledge-in-the-head versus knowledge-in-the-world (Norman 2013; Risko and Dunn 2015).”

“Studies that use choice offloading manipulations 13,15,16,22,23,62 might therefore better reflect the benefits that people obtain from this strategy in the real world.”

“For example, in one study, when adults studied strings of English letters for a subsequent memory test, the likelihood of offloading learning items to an external tool increased as the number of letters in the string increased (Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“…offloading has many obvious benefits like being able to remember more information and reducing cognitive load (see Cherkaoui & Gilbert, 2017; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & Gilbert, 2016; Sparrow et al., 2011; Storm & Stone, 2015; see Carter, 2018; Dawson, 2020, for educational implications),…”

“…settings suggests that the presence of a camera itself could change the way that officers encode information during their encounters with the public (Gilbert 2015; Henkel 2014; Marsh and Rajaram 2019; Risko and Dunn 2015; Risko and Gilbert 2016; Soares and Storm 2018; Sparrow et al. 2011).”

“Secondly, external resources can serve as media, such as writing information with pen and paper (Risko & Dunn, 2015) or typing on a computer (Sparrow et al., 2011).”

“…the problem-solving strategy (Ballard et al., 1997; Kirsh & Maglio, 1994), the use of diagrams and other visual aids to document processes, typing notes, and sketching to avoid the need for memorization (Gilbert, 2015; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Sparrow et al., 2011; Storm & Stone, 2015; Tversky, 2015).”

“So, sampling behaviour is likely to be the end-product of (perceived) working memory ability [45], effort minimisation [46], and task demands (speed and/or accuracy) [14,46].”

“Recent research has demonstrated that the ability to rely on external memory devices, unsurprisingly, allows near perfect “remembering” of information when the external store is available (Kelly & Risko, 2019a, 2019b; Lu et al., 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“…a notepad to assist memory) facilitates memory for other to-be-remembered information by reducing the interference from offloaded information when recalling target information (Dror & Harnad, 2008; Henkel, 2014; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & Gilbert, 2016; Sparrow et al., 2011; Storm & Stone, 2014).”

“For example, favoring a shopping-list-strategy over a memory strategy will likely improve shopping performance (Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“However (and consistent with previous reports in adults; e.g., Risko & Dunn, 2015 ), 42.4% of children in our study engaged in offloading when presented with 2 letters, even though there were no benefits to performance.”

“Rather than storing the state of the beacons in internal states for later use, the robots offload [28,29] the state of the beacons in the environment—more precisely, in the robot/environmental relation.”

“As he began to struggle with word problems, the teacher’s diagrams seemed to help Alan organize information in the word problems in ways that helped him offload information into the diagrams and minimize difficulties with working memory (Hord and Xin, 2015; Risko and Dunn, 2015).”

“Performance in this task has shown consistent benefit from having the opportunity to offload (Brown, 2021; Burnett & Richmond, 2023; Morrison & Richmond, 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“Special education researchers have found that teaching students to write information on paper in strategic ways (i.e., offloading; see Risko & Dunn, 2015) can alleviate some of the working memory-related struggles these students face (Marita & Hord, 2017).”

“Cognitive offloading has consistently been shown to benefit performance in both prospective and retrospective memory tasks (Gilbert, 2015; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“For exam - ple, participants in experiments have been shown to rely on the physical structure of a problem space as a kind of ‘external memory’ across a wide range of conditions, including when refraining from this strategy doesn’t come at a performance cost (Gilbert, 2015 ; Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“These effects have also been observed using a variety of different study materials, including letters (Morrison & Richmond, 2020; Risko & Dunn, 2015), numbers (Boldt & Gilbert, 2019; Sachdeva & Gilbert, 2020), and word lists (Kelly & Risko, 2019).”

“Cognitive offloading can be seen as a form of metacognitive control based on the evaluation of one's own cognitive abilities, and the estimation of the costs and benefits associated with reliance on exter-nal strategies versus internal processing (Risko & Dunn, 2015).”

“Following Risko and Dunn (2015), we suggest this requires human-machine systems must “adaptively integrate internal with external processes [to be] a successful cognitive agent in a complex environment” (p. 61).”

“…(Burnett & Richmond, 2023, 2024; Scarampi & Gilbert, 2021; Tsai et al., 2023), and for both in-person (Burnett & Rich-mond, 2023, 2024; Dupont et al., 2022; Risko & Dunn, 2015; Scarampi & Gilbert, 2021) and online (Ball & Peper, 2022; Brown, 2021; Gilbert, 2015a, 2015b; Murphy, 2023a) samples.”

“These results align with prior static-perspective fi ndings (Gilbert, 2015a, 2015b; Risko & Dunn, 2015) and validate the aforementioned belief-updating process.”

“There are two major reasons why the use of the internet to engage in so-called “cognitive offloading” (Risko & Dunn, 2015; Risko & Gilbert, 2016) cannot be considered a panacea.”

“2011; for review, see Risko and Dunn, 2015).”