A role for metamemory in cognitive offloading

Abstract

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.

The effect of metacognitive training on confidence and strategic reminder setting

“…It is likely that any bias towards reminders is influenced by multiple factors, and the influence of factors such as cognitive effort does not rule out the influence of metacognitive factors as well. Indeed, a relationship between metacognitive bias and reminder bias was still observed in the control group of the present study, consistent with earlier findings [ 8 – 12 ].…”

“…In line with previous studies [ 11 , 12 , 22 ], using reminders improved task performance, demonstrating the benefit of using external tools in aiding our memory. Further, participants in the control group were significantly underconfident in both their internal memory ability as well as their memory ability when setting reminders.…”

“…Enhancing our internal memory ability by using cognitive tools involves both costs and benefits. Previous studies [ 8 – 12 ] have suggested that we do not accurately assess our memory ability and thus do not make the most optimal decisions about whether or not to use external reminders. Using the optimal reminders paradigm, we investigated whether metacognitive training, i.e.…”

“…increased likelihood of remembering), and individuals often need to evaluate whether it would be more beneficial for them to create a reminder or not. Previous studies have suggested that an accurate estimation of our unaided memory abilities may be necessary to make optimal choices in reminder-setting [ 8 – 12 ]. Therefore, this study examines an intervention designed to a) improve the accuracy of participants’ self-judgments, and b) reduce bias in offloading decisions.…”

“…The relationship between confidence and intention offloading was replicated by Boldt and Gilbert [ 8 ], both when reminder-setting was instructed and when it was spontaneously generated. Similarly, in another study involving the recall of word pairs, lower confidence in memory ability was linked to more frequent requests for hints, even when performance was controlled for [ 12 ]. In line with this, a survey study showed a negative correlation between self-reported internal memory ability and the use of memory offloading [ 13 ].…”