Category: Technology | Published: 2025-07-03
Who And Why?
The research was led by Dr Nataliya Kosmyna, a scientist at MIT’s Media Lab, and was motivated by growing concerns about the cognitive impact of widespread reliance on AI tools in education and professional life. For example, the team said they wanted to understand how large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4o affect human cognition when people use them to perform tasks traditionally done unaided, such as writing short essays.
While AI is often praised for increasing productivity, Kosmyna and her team wanted to test whether that convenience actually comes at a cognitive cost. _“This is not about calling AI bad,”_ she told The Register. _“But it’s important to understand the trade-offs, especially in learning contexts.”_
How the Study Was Carried Out
The peer-reviewed preprint, titled Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, was based on four essay-writing sessions involving 54 Boston-area university students. The study divided participants into three groups: