Differences in Individual Metacognitive Awareness Make Cognitive Offloading Tools a Double-Edged Sword: The case of Spell-Checking Tools

Cognitive offloading research typically assumes uniform effects across users, yet individual differences in metacognitive awareness may influence these effects differently. We examined how users' everyday spell-checking practices interact with their metacognitive awareness. Using a behavioral measure of awareness (proportion of errors detected and corrected), we conducted a 2×2 experiment (awareness × tool usage, n=88). Participants completed a three-phase spelling task-baseline, error review, and validation-with performance assessed by the number of spelling errors. Results revealed a significant interaction effect (𝐹 (1, 84) = 3.950, 𝑝 = .050, 𝜂 2 = .045): spell-checking tools minimally affected high-awareness users but resulted in significantly poorer performance among low-awareness users (𝑀 = 1.70 𝑣𝑠 . 𝑀 = 7.74, 𝑑 = 1.07). These findings suggest that cognitive offloading tools may have differential effects depending on users' metacognitive capabilities, raising considerations for incorporating individual differences into assistive technology design and questioning one-size-fits-all design assumptions.