Strategic 'offloading' of intentions: Neurocognitive mechanisms and effects of ageing

Every day, we form many intentions for behaviours that we plan to execute after a delay. These intentions might be postponed for just a few seconds (e.g. intending to add an attachment to an email before clicking 'send'), or minutes, days, or longer (e.g. intending to attend a planned hospital appointment). If we are to live independent, purposeful lives, it is essential that we are able to fulfil such intentions. Yet we all know how easily forgotten they are. This can have catastrophic effects in safety-critical fields such as nursing or aviation, and serious consequences for health-related behaviours such as remembering to take medication. Understanding how we fulfil delayed intentions will allow us to develop techniques to optimise this aspect of memory, and potentially compensate for any difficulties.

Researchers have developed many experimental tasks for studying memory for intentions in the laboratory. Virtually all of these tasks prevent participants from using external tools and reminders. However, in everyday life we often use diaries or to-do lists, or we set up reminders in our environment. How do we decide whether or not to use these strategies? What consequences do they have for our behaviour? How much do individuals differ in whether or not they use reminders, and what can we do to influence this? While some studies have investigated these questions in brain-injured individuals, we know very little about healthy people. Yet, with new technologies such as smartphone reminder apps and wearable devices, we increasingly 'offload' intentions into the world around us. This proposal describes a systematic and detailed investigation of 'intention offloading'.

In the first strand of research, we will conduct a scientifically rigorous study of intention offloading behaviour. Participants will perform a task requiring them to remember a briefly-delayed intention, with the option to set a reminder if they wish. We will investigate whether people use reminders optimally, or show biases towards overusing or underusing them. We will also examine whether we can influence people's use of reminders by subtle changes in the feedback we give them about their performance. Further, we will test whether using reminders can harm our ability to remember intentions by ourselves. These questions have not been investigated before, but they have clear implications for how we can boost people's ability to fulfil their intentions.

The second strand will examine the effect of ageing on the use of reminders. It has often been suspected that older adults use reminders more than younger adults, to compensate for a decline in their unaided ability, but this has not been systematically examined in the laboratory. Understanding how our use of reminders changes as we get older can help us to design interventions that allow us to remain independent and healthy throughout the lifespan.

The third strand will use brain imaging to examine how reminders affect our brain processes. Our previous research has shown that we can decode people's intentions by looking at their neural activity. We will investigate whether this is still true after a reminder has been set: when we offload an intention, how does this affect the way it is represented in the brain? We will also investigate whether the brain systems we use to decide whether or not to set reminders are similar or different to brain systems we use to actually remember intentions. Difficulty remembering intentions is one of the most common effects of brain injury. These studies can inform the development of rehabilitation strategies tailored to different forms of brain damage.

In combination, these three strands of research will deliver fundamental insight into our everyday ability to fulfil intentions, with direct relevance for strategies that can support this ability in healthy young adults, and promote behavioural independence in the context of ageing and memory impairment.

Alongside academic researchers working in relevant fields, the proposed research has the potential to impact a wide range of user groups, described below. For detailed information on how research outputs will be disseminated to these diverse groups, see the 'Pathways to Impact' section.

Clinicians and applied psychologists

While there has been a paucity of research into intention offloading in healthy individuals (the topic of the present application), the importance of intention offloading as a compensatory strategy for memory difficulties has long been recognised within the field of neurorehabilitation. The proposed research will provide theoretical background with direct translational relevance to this field, delivering practical guidelines for the optimal use of this strategy based on individualised assessment. Further, a central aim of the proposed research is to investigate interventions that can influence participants' choice to use, or forgo, external reminders. Such interventions can lead to improved ability to fulfil intentions in healthy young individuals, across the lifespan, and in the context of acquired memory impairment.

Behaviour change practitioners and theorists

Individuals often hold behaviour change intentions (e.g. to exercise more or reduce one's impact on the environment), which are associated with strong individual and societal benefits, but hard to achieve in practice. Creating external cues to prompt intended behaviour is recognised as a powerful method for translating intentions into action, but there is relatively little empirical evidence to guide the effective promotion of such strategies. The proposed research will directly investigate interventions to modify intention offloading behaviour, which can lead to the development of effective behaviour change techniques.

Interaction design / human-computer interaction practitioners

Computers, smartphones, and wearable devices are increasingly used as tools to support memory for intentions. In order to optimise design of such technologies, it is important to understand individuals' biases towards using, or avoiding, reminders. This can lead to improved user interface guidelines, particularly as they relate to users at different stages in the lifespan. In particular, an important focus of the proposed research is to investigate how individuals' appraisal of their own memory abilities (i.e. 'metacognitive evaluation') relate to their use of intention offloading strategies. Incorporating tools to promote accurate metacognitive evaluation can potentially play an important role in improving the effectiveness of such devices, but this approach has not yet been implemented in currently available technologies.

General public

The question of how we remember intentions, and what methods we can use to improve our abilities, is of great interest to the general public. (E.g. Dr Gilbert gave a talk on this topic during the 2015 Royal Society Summer Science exhibition, attended by approximately 200 individuals). As part of the proposed research, a 'citizen science' website will be created, allowing participants to take part in experimental tasks at home, and containing practical advice and guidelines on how best to fulfil intentions (e.g. 'implementation intentions' and intention offloading). Dissemination of this information can yield clear potential benefits for health and wellbeing. Alongside this website, other public engagement activities (e.g. British Science Festival) will be pursued, and publicised via social media such as Facebook and Twitter.