Participants deprived of relevant relational knowledge in Stage 1 take longer on the subsequent network-reasoning task¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r3 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 The control condition, which completed an unrelated Stage 1 task, took significantly longer to complete Stage 2 than the comparable no-genAI, no-incentive experimental condition. → Dawid Ratajczyk 2026

Evidence¶

Dawid Ratajczyk 2026¶

Dawid Ratajczyk, Agata Dymarska, Adam Matłoka, Michał Tomczyk, Małgorzata Wiącek. (2026). Thinking With AI, Reasoning Without It: Cognitive Offloading to Generative AI Weakens Effort Regulation. Preprint. https://osf.io/59qtm/ doi:10.31234/osf.io/83jum_v1

q3 · i3 · causal · r3

Stage 2 completion-time comparison between the control condition (different Stage 1 knowledge network, no genAI) and the comparable experimental condition in the lab experiment, tested with a Mann–Whitney U test; the quoted effect size is r rb = −.380.

"The control group also took significantly longer to complete Stage 2 than the comparable experimental condition (no-genAI, no-incentives;𝑈= 435.00,𝑝=.005,𝑟 rb = −.380)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Performance incentives increase time invested in the assisted reasoning task — related
• Prior genAI access shows only exploratory evidence of poorer subsequent unaided reasoning, within the no-incentive condition, and no preregistered main effect — related
• GenAI use weakens effort adjustment to incentives on subsequent unaided reasoning — related
• Both hint conditions took more time-on-task than control, but ChatGPT and human tutor conditions did not differ in session time — related
• Adaptive-condition students complete the posttest in significantly less time than Control students — related
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• Prior genAI use and incentives show no clear effects on later memory retention — related