Abstract
Risko and Gilbert review behaviours in which a physical action changes a task so the mind carries less of it, and they frame the trigger as both demand and a fallible judgment of one’s own ability.
Risko, E. F., & Gilbert, S. J. (2016). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(9), 676–688. DOI
Key findings
- Action changes the task — Offloading is a physical move, a tilt of the head or a reminder set in a phone, that lowers what the person has to process internally.
- Two triggers — People offload when the inner demand would be high, and when they judge their own ability as insufficient. That judgment can be wrong.
- Consequences are the second question — The review treats the after-effect on thinking as part of the phenomenon, not as a footnote.
Limits
Cite-anchor from the published abstract and the authors’ open manuscript. This is a review and a framework across several literatures, not one experiment with one effect size. Do not read it as a law that every tool atrophies a skill.
Application
When you hand a step to a calculator, a photograph, or a model, name the capacity that will miss a rep, and keep one small rep of it (Cognitive offloading).