Cognitive offloading and its consequences

For thousands of years—maybe for as long as we've been human—we've offloaded our thinking. We've counted on our fingers. We've carved tallies into bone. We've invented a long series of tools to help us reason, remember, and manage information—tools like abacuses, calendars, writing systems, calculators, smartphones, and many, many more. So cognitive offloading is hardly new—but the questions around it seem newly urgent. As cognitive technologies accumulate, as opportunities for offloading tempt us at every turn, as headlines warn of "digital dementia" and "cognitive surrender," it seems like a good time to take stock. Yes, cognitive offloading can save us time and effort. But what are its other consequences?

My guest today is Dr. Sam Gilbert. Sam is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. Sam and his colleagues have been trailblazers in the study of cognitive offloading—when we do it, why we do it, what it does for us and to us.

Here, Sam and I talk about what cognitive offloading is, how deep it goes in our species' history, and how it pervades our everyday lives. We talk about the different forms that offloading takes. We discuss why some people offload more than others, and why we offload in certain situations. We walk through three bodies of research on the consequences of cognitive offloading—research on the so-called Google effect, on the photo-taking impairment effect, and on the impact of using GPS to navigate. Of course, we also address the elephant in the room: How should we think about the possible dangers—and benefits—of cognitive offloading in the new era of AI?

Before we get to it, some news: We have re-launched the Many Minds newsletter, as a Substack! We'll be sharing each of our episodes there, as well as other morsels from time to time. We've been wanting to do this, in part, to give you a better way to engage with us—and with each other. Were there questions we should have asked? Are there connections you made that we didn't? Counterarguments we overlooked? Et cetera. All that stuff can now go in the comments for each episode. So, if you're a fan of the show, please do consider subscribing and following along with us there.

Alright friends, on to my conversation with Dr. Sam Gilbert. Enjoy!

Notes

4:00 – For a sampling of recent discussions of AI and its possible harms, see here, here, and here.

7:30 – For a scholarly discussion of "shifting baseline syndrome," see here.

12:30 – For an earlier influential overview of the phenomenon of cognitive offloading, see this article by Dr. Gilbert and a colleague.

15:00 – For more on the phenomenon of tilting one's head to view a tilted image (aka "external normalization"), see here. For an example of recent work on finger counting in children, see here.

18:00 – For some of Dr. Gilbert's work on cognitive effort in cognitive offloading, see here. For another recent discussion of the construct, see here.

23:00 – For a recent review of "intention offloading" by Dr. Gilbert and colleagues, see here.

29:00 – For work by Dr. Gilbert and colleagues on the role of metacognition in offloading, see here and here.

33:00 – For recent work by Dr. Gilbert and colleagues on offloading in older and younger adults, see here. See also a recent review of cognitive offloading in children by Dr. Gilbert and a colleague.

39:00 – The original study of the "Google effect" by Sparrow and colleagues. For more on "transactive memory," see here.

45:00 – For the original demonstration of the "photo-taking impairment effect," see here. For recent work by Dr. Gilbert and colleagues exploring this effect, see here.

53:00 – A recent meta-analysis of whether GPS impairs navigation ability.

59:00 – The 'Your Brain on ChatGPT' preprint.

1:02:00 – For a meta-analysis of the effects of calculators on math education, see here.

Recommendations

'The Intelligent Use of Space,' by David Kirsh

Cognition in the Wild, by Edwin Hutchins

Tile art credit: Image by NASA via Wikipedia

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd.

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