Berry, EDJ, Allen, RJ orcid.org/0000-0002-1887-3016, Mon-Williams, M orcid.org/0000-0001-7595-8545 et al. (1 more author) (2019) Cognitive Offloading: Structuring the Environment to Improve Children's Working Memory Task Performance. Cognitive Science, 43 (8). e12770. ISSN 0364-0213
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Berry, E. D., Allen, R. J., Mon‐Williams, M. and Waterman, A. H. (2019), Cognitive Offloading: Structuring the Environment to Improve Children's Working Memory Task Performance. Cogn Sci, 43: e12770., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12770. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. |
Keywords: | cognitive offloading; working memory; developmental; metacognition |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NIHR National Inst Health Research YH - CLAHRC |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 May 2019 16:22 |
Last Modified: | 04 Aug 2020 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/cogs.12770 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:146506 |