The underlying reasons for making reminders: An investigation on memory offloading from the perspective of cognitive psychology

Yiran Zhang

doi:10.54097/ehss.v8i.4678

Authors

Yiran Zhang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v8i.4678

Keywords:

Cognitive offloading; Reminder setting; Working memory; Metacognition.

Abstract

Setting reminders has become a part of people’s daily life. Apart from the convenience brought by the digital era, why people like setting reminders is still not very clear yet. The field of cognitive psychology gives several explanations. One of the most common explanations would be that people may not trust their memory as they usually forget the task they need to do. This essay purposes to analyse this viewpoint by reviewing the most recent findings in this area. Three main topics would be involved in this essay. The role of memory would be introduced first. Then, the influence of metacognitive confidence will be discussed. Other factors also contributing to the reason such as avoidance to cognitive effort and personality traits will be finally discussed. After analysis the previous studies, it could be concluded that the purpose of reminder setting was to serve the limited memory capacity. However, this purpose is not the only factor affecting reminder setting. Metacognitive confidence and avoidance to cognitive effort were found as another two important factors contributing to reminder setting so far. Individual differences such as personal traits were suggested as a potential factor affecting this behaviour, but no solid evidence was found to support this.

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