In both the private and work spheres, multitasking among three or more activities has become and is continuing to evolve as a pervasive element of everyday life, and recent technological advances only seem to be exacerbating the process. Despite attempts to understand the mental processes that let humans successfully multitask, little is known about the functional cognitive level at which these mental processes take place. This thesis makes a case for the involvement of spatial ability (among other cognitive abilities) in successful multitasking behavior. It focuses on the importance of the cognitive off-loading of executive control demands onto spatial ability, due to the inherent complexity of relationships between task goals and deadlines in multitasking scenarios. Importantly, it presents a working hypothesis—the spatiotemporal hypothesis of multitasking—as a tool for making specific predictions about multitasking performance, based on individual and sex differences in spatial ability. In Study 1, individual differences in spatial ability and executive functions emerged as independent predictors of multitasking performance. When spatial ability was decomposed into its subcomponents, only the coordinate (metric), but not categorical (nonmetric), processing of spatial relations was related to multitasking performance. Males outperformed females in both spatial ability and multitasking, and the effects were moderated by menstrual changes, in that sex differences in coordinate spatial processing and multitasking were observed between males and females in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, but not between males and females at menses. In Study II, multitasking performance reflected age- and sex-related differences in executive functioning and spatial ability, suggesting that executive functions contribute to multitasking performance across the adult life span, and that reliance on spatial skills for coordinating deadlines is reduced with advancing age. The results of Study III, in which the spatiotemporal hypothesis was directly scrutinized, suggest that the spatial disruption of multiple deadlines interferes with multitasking performance. Overall, these findings suggest that multitasking performance, under certain conditions, reflects independent contributions of spatial ability and executive functioning. Moreover, the results support the distinction between categorical and coordinate spatial processing, suggesting that these two basic relational processes are selectively affected by female sex hormones and are differentially effective, even across the age span, in transforming and handling temporal patterns as spatial relations in the context of multitasking. Finally, fluctuations of sex hormones exhibit a modulating effect on sex differences in spatial ability and multitasking performance. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

abstract: Individuals engaged in perceptual tasks often use their bodies to lighten the cognitive load, that is, they replace internal (mental) processing with external (body-based) processing. The present investigation explores how the body is used in the task of reading rotated text. The experimental design allowed the participants to exhibit spontaneous behavior and choose what strategies to use in order to efficiently complete the task. The results demonstrate that the use of external strategies can benefit performance by offloading internal processing. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2013

(in English) The subject of this master thesis is a cognitive offloading, sometimes also called cognitive outsourcing, meaning the impact of new media on human cognitive abilities. This work describes the evolution of the theoretical concept of cognitive offloading, types of cognitive offloading and it's functioning in today's society. Following Daniel Wegner's work, it describes basic concepts such as group mind and transactive memory and it focuses on a specific area of cognitive offloading - the impact of mobile photography on human memory. The thesis summarizes results of existing studies in this field and presents the results of a replicated pilot study conducted with the students of Czech high school. The aim of this study was to find out if - and to what extent - does smartphones impact one's memory and cognitive abilities in daily life. The conclusion analyzes the limits of this work and outlines further research possibilities in this field.

Note-taking is ubiquitous. Whether we write down a grocery list, type our intentions for the day, or record a voice note for a friend, we often use notes to externalize our thoughts. We “delegate” this information to “in the world” extensions of our cognition, thus lightening our cognitive loads. The current thesis investigates the effects of note-taking as a form of cognitive offloading in an applied research setting. The note-taking literature is fragmented regarding practical note-taking recommendations for educators. The current thesis advances our knowledge and understanding of the crossover between cognitive offloading, note-taking, and individual differences. The laboratory research presented in this thesis uses novel materials that mimic the classroom environment, with future goals of translating this research into the actual classroom. Chapter 2 explores note-taking from a cognitive offloading perspective and demonstrates how differences in note-taking quantity affect recall. Chapter 3 showcases how differences in learning between note-taking modalities are seen sporadically and only when they intersect with the type of test. Chapter 4 investigates the importance of individual differences (e.g., working memory capacity) when exploring cognitive offloading and note-taking, and demonstrates how surface findings are not generalizable once we investigate underlying individual differences. While our research started as a way to understand how we offload information via note-taking and its effects on learning, we hope our findings and general discussion encourage the reader to explore the generalizability of applied cognitive research. Note-taking is a complex process, and our future work aims to investigate how learners differ and how we might disseminate research in education to be inclusive and diverse. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Imagine a world without technology or external resources to express your thoughts: no “to-do” lists, calendar reminders, sketches, or notes. Since our memory capacities are limited, we often maintain a record of information “in the world”, as opposed to only using our limited memory stores. This form of mental delegation is known as “cognitive offloading”. One way we offload information for future access is through note-taking. In an educational setting, note-taking influences our ability to learn and review information. How we take notes, and their effects on learning, have been debated in the literature. This thesis explores the impact of cognitive offloading and note-taking on learning, and demonstrates the importance of exploring individual differences (e.g., memory capacity and note-taking preference) in applied educational research. Throughout this thesis, we prompt our audience to frame note-taking and cognitive research takeaways through an inclusive educational lens.