What question did this study set out to answer?

Determine how constant access to Internet search engines alters cognitive processing, concept priming, and internal memory storage strategies.

July 15, 2011Science

Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips

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Determine how constant access to Internet search engines alters cognitive processing, concept priming, and internal memory storage strategies.
Conducted four experimental laboratory studies assessing cognitive priming and memory recall under varying conditions of anticipated future information access.
Encountering difficult general-knowledge questions rapidly primed cognitive activation toward computer- and search-related concepts.
Expecting future access to information significantly lowered the recall rates of factual content while boosting memory for the location where the information could be retrieved.

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Implication

Experimental study reveals reduced factual recall and enhanced location recall when future access is expected in humans, indicating the Internet functions as an external transactive memory system.

Cite This Study

Sparrow et al. (2011) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69d73ea3c74376700bf31024 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1207745

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Implication

Experimental study reveals reduced factual recall and enhanced location recall when future access is expected in humans, indicating the Internet functions as an external transactive memory system.

Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips

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Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

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