CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
Your brain on ChatGPT, but whose brain? The missing adolescent in AI-cognition research — Frontiers in Developmental Psychology
- Key
- campos-koff-2026-whose-brain
- Authors
- Pereira Campos, Jorge; Koff, Tatiana
- Issued
- 2026-7-8
- Type
- article-journal
- Container
- Frontiers in Developmental Psychology
- Volume
- 4
Raw CSL JSON
{
"DOI": "10.3389/fdpys.2026.1885225",
"URL": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/developmental-psychology/articles/10.3389/fdpys.2026.1885225/full",
"type": "article-journal",
"genre": "Hypothesis and Theory",
"title": "Your brain on ChatGPT, but whose brain? The missing adolescent in AI-cognition research",
"author": [
{
"given": "Jorge",
"family": "Pereira Campos"
},
{
"given": "Tatiana",
"family": "Koff"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2026,
7,
8
]
]
},
"volume": "4",
"container-title": "Frontiers in Developmental Psychology"
}
Claims
-
Pereira Campos and Koff note that the MIT study involved only adults aged 18 to 39 and hypothesize that cognitive debt, possibly temporary in adults, could be developmental in adolescents, whose executive functions mature between ages 10 and 20; they stress that this is an untested hypothesis.
"Whilst the cognitive debt that Kosmyna and colleagues described in adults may be temporary, in children and adolescents it could be developmental. That is the distinction this paper sets out to examine. None of this has been demonstrated. What follows is a hypothesis."
-
Pereira Campos and Koff attribute the coinage of 'cognitive debt' to Kosmyna et al. and warn that it should be kept distinct from 'reduced neural engagement' and 'reduced neural connectivity', which are separate measured quantities.
"Three terms often get used as if they were one, and they should be kept apart. “Cognitive debt” is Kosmyna et al.'s (2025) coinage, the idea that work handed to AI is paid for later. “Reduced neural engagement” means lower task-related activation while the tool is in use. “Reduced neural connectivity” means weaker coordinated activity between regions"
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