From metacognitive beliefs to strategy selection: does fake performance feedback influence cognitive offloading?

The ubiquitous availability of technological aids requires individuals to constantly decide between either externalizing cognitive processes into these aids (i.e. cognitive offloading) or relying on their own internal cognitive resources. With the present research, we investigated the influence of metacognitive beliefs on individuals’ offloading behavior in an experimental setup (N = 159). We manipulated participants’ metacognitive beliefs about their memory abilities by providing fake performance feedback: below-average feedback, above-average feedback, or no feedback (control-group). We then measured offloading behavior, using a pattern copying task in which participants copied a color pattern from a model window into a workspace window. While solving this task, participants could rely either more on an internal memory strategy or more on an offloading strategy. Fake performance feedback affected the participants’ metacognitive evaluations about their memory abilities (below-group < control-group < above-group). Although fake performance feedback did not affect actual offloading behavior, the participants receiving below-average performance feedback reported that they had relied more on an offloading strategy than those participants receiving above-average performance feedback. Furthermore, the participants in the below-group reported lower general memory abilities than the other groups at the end of the experiment. We conclude that while fake performance feedback strongly influenced metacognitive beliefs, this did not transfer into a change of strategy selection, thus not influencing offloading behavior. We propose to consider not only metacognitive beliefs but also metacognitive experiences as potential determinants of cognitive offloading.