ReviewPsychonomic bulletin & review2023
Outsourcing Memory to External Tools: A Review of 'Intention Offloading'.
Review in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Time-based prospective memory impairment in adults who smoke: the role of internal and external attention and cue-based intervention.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Let it go: How trusted reminders alter intention maintenance.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- Between Alarms and Scheduling: The Effect of Cognitive Offloading on Prospective and Retrospective Memory.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Get the unbalance right: asymmetric transfer effects in cognitive offloading.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2026Article
- Metacognitive training facilitates optimal cognitive offloading.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2026Article
- Investigating the role of cognitive load on prospective memory performance across event and mixed cues retrievals.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Comparing distributed knowledge: the effects of visualization format and comparison strategy on task performance.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Strategic reminder setting for time-based intentions: Influence of metacognition, delay length, and cue visibility.Memory & cognition · 2025Article
- Microstructural organization of superior longitudinal fasciculus and cingulum bundle support metacognition driven cognitive offloading.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cost avoidance underlies decisions to use prospective memory reminders.Memory & cognition · 2025Article
- Article
- Extending Minds with Generative AI.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Individual differences in prospective and retrospective memory offloading.Journal of memory and language · 2025Article
- Reminders eliminate age-related declines in prospective memory.Psychology and aging · 2025Article
- Cognitive Control.Annual review of psychology · 2025Review
- The role of short-term memory, type of practice and metacognitive judgments in predicting cognitive offloading.Frontiers in cognition · 2025Article
- The role of offloading intentions on future-oriented thinking.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Article
- Influence of the physical effort of reminder-setting on strategic offloading of delayed intentions.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024Article
- Spillover effects of reminder nudges in complex environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Human and AI collaboration in the higher education environment: opportunities and concerns.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How do we remember delayed intentions? Three decades of research into prospective memory have provided insight into the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in this form of memory. However, we depend on more than just our brains to remember intentions. We also use external props and tools such as calendars and diaries, strategically placed objects, and technologies such as smartphone alerts. This is known as 'intention offloading'. Despite the progress in our understanding of brain-based prospective memory, we know much less about the role of intention offloading in individuals' ability to fulfil delayed intentions. Here, we review recent research into intention offloading, with a particular focus on how individuals decide between storing intentions in internal memory versus external reminders. We also review studies investigating how intention offloading changes across the lifespan and how it relates to underlying brain mechanisms. We conclude that intention offloading is highly effective, experimentally tractable, and guided by metacognitive processes. Individuals have systematic biases in their offloading strategies that are stable over time. Evidence also suggests that individual differences and developmental changes in offloading strategies are driven at least in part by metacognitive processes. Therefore, metacognitive interventions could play an important role in promoting individuals' adaptive use of cognitive tools.
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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.