Cognitive Offloading: A Review

Abstract

The memory capacity of humans, particularly that of short-term memory, is limited (Schacter, 2001; Shenhav etal., 2017). According to the extended mind theory, cognition functions as a cohesive system made up of interactions between internal processes and the external environment to support cognitive tasks (Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Hence to improve performance we use various methods. We are frequently warned about depending too much on the external tools rather than our own internal cognitive capacities in the Internet and smartphone era (e.g., Carr, 2020). Cognitive offloading is such a strategy used to reduce cognitive load. There are instances when physical activity is utilised to lessen a task’s cognitive demands. We call this cognitive offloading. The mechanisms that lead to cognitive offloading and the cognitive effects of this behaviour are being studied in recent times. Generally speaking, cognitive offloading can be categorised as behaviours that transfer cognitive demands on to the body and the environment. Using the environment as a storehouse for representational information, we are able to import cognitive processes into the world and do away with the necessity for internal representations. To record knowledge that has to be recalled, people could, for instance, write down, enter into a computer, sketch, or take other actions that modify the surroundings (Gilbert & Risko 2016). The aim of study is to conduct a review of the phenomenon of cognitive offloading. For that using the keywords of cognitive offloading, psychology and meta cognition searches on Web of science, Google scholar, and Scopus were carried out. Out of the available full articles, only 49 were selected that matched the aim of the study. All papers were analysed and review paper was organised into three sections: studies that showed advantages of cognitive off loading, studies on dis advantages and studies that shows relation with metacognitive evaluations. Conclusions were made accordingly. In this age of technological advancements where chips are being inserted to human brains for tackling various daily tasks, cognitive offloading or the use of physical action to reduce the cognitive demands of a task remains relevant. There are Various studies that suggest the potential advantages of this task like improving performance, enhancing prospective task and intentional offloading, reducing errors and cognitive loads etc. at the same time various studies suggest how employing cognitive offloading tasks result in creating false memories, affecting inherent memory abilities, making humans passive or lazy thinkers etc. Meta cognitive evaluations play a crucial role in the decision to use or not use cognitive offloading tasks.