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Cited by 54Child and Animal Learning DevelopmentCognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skillsCognitive Abilities and Testing

Children Devise and Selectively Use Tools to Offload Cognition

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Bulley, Adam, McCarthy, Thomas, Gilbert, Sam J., Suddendorf, Thomas, Redshaw, Jonathan·2020·Current Biology
DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.035
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Abstract

From maps sketched in sand to supercomputing software, humans ubiquitously enhance cognitive performance by creating and using artifacts that bear mental load [1-5]. This extension of information processing into the environment has taken center stage in debates about the nature of cognition in humans and other animals [6-9]. How does the human mind acquire such strategies? In two experiments, we investigated the developmental origins of cognitive offloading in 150 children aged between 4 and 11 years. We created a memory task in which children were required to recall the location of hidden targets. In one experiment, participants were provided with a pre-specified cognitive offloading opportunity: an option to mark the target locations with tokens during the hiding period. Even 4-year-old children quickly adopted this external strategy and, in line with a metacognitive account, children across ages offloaded more often when the task was more difficult. In a second experiment, we provided children with the means to devise their own cognitive offloading strategy. Very few younger children spontaneously devised a solution, but by ages 10 and 11, nearly all did so. In a follow-up test phase, a simple prompt greatly increased the rate at which the younger children devised an offloading strategy. These findings suggest that sensitivity to the difficulties of thinking arises early in development and improves throughout the early school years, with children learning to modify the world around them to compensate for their cognitive limits.

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  • Children already selectively use tools to overcome cognitive limitations.

    “Recent findings revealed that already children selectively use tools to overcome cognitive limitations (Armitage et al., 2020; Bulley et al., 2020).”

    From Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory (2021) · cites this paper as Bulley et al., 2020

  • Only older children were able to arrive at their own offloading strategy without being prompted to do so.

    “only older children were able to arrive at their own offloading strategy without being prompted to do so”

    From The Cognitive Architecture of Digital Externalization (2023) · cites this paper as Bulley et al., 2020

  • Children aged 4 to 11 years used offloading in a non-digital memory task.

    “children aged 4 to 11 years used offloading in a non-digital memory task”

    From The Cognitive Architecture of Digital Externalization (2023) · cites this paper as Bulley et al., 2020

  • Difficulty increased the tendency to offload.

    “Again, difficulty increased the tendency to offload.”

    From The Cognitive Architecture of Digital Externalization (2023) · cites this paper as Bulley et al., 2020

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Authors
Bulley, A., McCarthy, T., Gilbert, S. J., Suddendorf, T., & Redshaw, J.
Affiliations
  • The University of Sydney (AU)
  • The University of Queensland (AU)
  • University College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Bulley, Adam
ORCID
Venue
Current Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-09
Volume
30
Issue
17
Pages
3457-3464.e3
ISSN
0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.035
OpenAlex
W3041011515
Cited by
54
References
68
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1
FWCI
6.04
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Current Biology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • University of Queensland
  • National Health and Medical Research Council
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
Keywords
cognitive offloading, children, tool use, metacognition, memory retrieval, spatial memory, cognitive load, strategy selection, early school years
MeSH terms
Child, Child, Preschool, Cognition, Female, Humans, Learning, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Mental Recall

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