ArticlePsychological research2021
From metacognitive beliefs to strategy selection: does fake performance feedback influence cognitive offloading?
Article in Psychological research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analytic investigations of the effect of cognitive offloading on memory-based task performance and interindividual variability.Memory & cognition · 2026Pooled it
- Metacognitive training facilitates optimal cognitive offloading.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2026Article
- Not all cognitive offloading is equal: distinguishing dependent and autonomous offloading to generative AI.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Attention in our digital ecosystem: The five interactive components that drive media multitasking.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Review
- Generative AI tool use enhances academic achievement in sustainable education through shared metacognition and cognitive offloading among preservice teachers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Influence of the physical effort of reminder-setting on strategic offloading of delayed intentions.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024Article
- Human and AI collaboration in the higher education environment: opportunities and concerns.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Retrospective judgments of confidence in a complex span task.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Age-related differences in memory when offloading important information.Psychology and aging · 2023Article
- Outsourcing Memory to External Tools: A Review of 'Intention Offloading'.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2023Review
- Framing cognitive offloading in terms of gains or losses: achieving a more optimal use of reminders.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2022Article
- Supporting Cognition With Modern Technology: Distributed Cognition Today and in an AI-Enhanced Future.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2022Article
- Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2021Article
- Individual differences in cognitive offloading: a comparison of intention offloading, pattern copy, and short-term memory capacity.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The ubiquitous availability of technological aids requires individuals to constantly decide between either externalizing cognitive processes into these aids (i.e. cognitive offloading) or relying on their own internal cognitive resources. With the present research, we investigated the influence of metacognitive beliefs on individuals' offloading behavior in an experimental setup (N = 159). We manipulated participants' metacognitive beliefs about their memory abilities by providing fake performance feedback: below-average feedback, above-average feedback, or no feedback (control-group). We then measured offloading behavior, using a pattern copying task in which participants copied a color pattern from a model window into a workspace window. While solving this task, participants could rely either more on an internal memory strategy or more on an offloading strategy. Fake performance feedback affected the participants' metacognitive evaluations about their memory abilities (below-group < control-group < above-group). Although fake performance feedback did not affect actual offloading behavior, the participants receiving below-average performance feedback reported that they had relied more on an offloading strategy than those participants receiving above-average performance feedback. Furthermore, the participants in the below-group reported lower general memory abilities than the other groups at the end of the experiment. We conclude that while fake performance feedback strongly influenced metacognitive beliefs, this did not transfer into a change of strategy selection, thus not influencing offloading behavior. We propose to consider not only metacognitive beliefs but also metacognitive experiences as potential determinants of cognitive offloading.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.