Cognitive Offloading: Structuring the Environment to Improve Children's Working Memory Task Performance

Abstract

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they were arranged randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed.

Developmental origins of cognitive offloading

“…Despite being a central facet of complex human behaviour, the developmental origins of cognitive offloading remain largely unexamined. Previous studies have shown that young children can enhance internal cognitive performance with behaviours such as finger-counting [41] and by questioning knowledgeable adults in situations of uncertainty [42], and also that they can benefit from cognitive offloading cues provided by an experimenter [43][44][45]. Yet, the critical question of when and how humans begin to selectively modify their environment to overcome internal cognitive shortcomings remains unanswered [46].…”

That's my spot! Examining spatial habit formation in a naturalistic setting

“…Though recent research has found evidence consistent with the notion that individuals make spatial decisions that lead to improvements in task performance, there is also evidence that efficient task performance is not the only factor at play. For instance, Berry et al (2019) found that even though school‐age children recognize that organizing colored blocks in their task space (i.e., by color categories) makes performing a subsequent spatial working memory task easier, they do not necessarily opt to rearrange their space when provided with the opportunity to do so. In a similar vein, Zhu and Risko (2016) found that the tendency to place objects in positions that facilitated task performance depended on the physical effort required to reach for these objects.…”

To organise or not to organise? Understanding search strategy preferences using Lego building blocks

“…This discrepancy between the potential benefits of spatial organisation and the lack of engagement in organisational activity was further demonstrated in a series of studies involving school-age children (Berry et al, 2019).…”