Cognitive Offloading in Short-Term Memory Tasks: Trust Toward Tools as a Moderator

Cognitive offloading refers to using physical actions to reduce cognitive demand by altering a task’s information processing requirements. It enables problem-solving beyond the brain’s capacity. This study introduces subjective trust toward tools as a key factor in cognitive offloading, reflecting the connection between users and the tools they rely on. Participants rated their trust toward three tools before using them in a short-term memory task with four difficulty levels. Task performance and cognitive offloading frequency were recorded. Results showed that cognitive offloading significantly improved performance, with stronger effects when trust toward the tool was high. When faced with tasks of medium difficulty, participants were more inclined to adopt cognitive offloading strategies with tools they trusted than those they trusted less. These findings highlight the importance of trust toward tool selection for cognitive offloading, offering insights into designing and choosing effective tools for enhancing cognitive performance.