ArticleMemory & cognition2023
Just write it down: Similarity in the benefit from cognitive offloading in young and older adults.
Article in Memory & cognition, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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
6 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metacognition and metacognitive monitoring in aging.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Between Alarms and Scheduling: The Effect of Cognitive Offloading on Prospective and Retrospective Memory.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Generative AI tool use enhances academic achievement in sustainable education through shared metacognition and cognitive offloading among preservice teachers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Individual differences in prospective and retrospective memory offloading.Journal of memory and language · 2025Article
- Memory selectivity in older age.Current opinion in psychology · 2024Review
- Eye Movements as Proxy for Visual Working Memory Usage: Increased Reliance on the External World in Korsakoff Syndrome.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Past research conducted primarily in young adults has demonstrated the utility of cognitive offloading for benefitting performance of memory-based tasks, particularly at high memory loads. At the same time, older adults show declines in a variety of memory abilities, including subtle changes in short-term memory, suggesting that cognitive offloading could also benefit performance of memory-based tasks in this group. To this end, 94 participants (62 young adults, 32 older adults) were tested on a retrospective audiovisual short-term memory task in two blocked conditions. Offloading was permitted in the offloading choice condition but not in the internal memory condition. Performance was improved for both age groups in the offloading choice condition compared to the internal memory condition. Moreover, the choice to use the offloading strategy was similar across age groups at high memory loads, and use of the offloading strategy benefitted performance for young and older adults similarly. These data suggest that older adults can make effective use of cognitive offloading to rescue performance of memory-based activities, and invites future research on the benefits of cognitive offloading for older adults in other, more complex tasks where age-related memory impairment is expected to be more prominent.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.