CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task — arXiv
- Key
- kosmyna-et-al-2025-brain-chatgpt
- Authors
- Kosmyna, Nataliya; Hauptmann, Eugene; Yuan, Ye Tong; Situ, Jessica; Liao, Xian-Hao; Beresnitzky, Ashly Vivian; Braunstein, Iris; Maes, Pattie
- Issued
- 2025-6
- Type
- article
- Container
- arXiv
Raw CSL JSON
{
"DOI": "10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872",
"URL": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872",
"type": "article",
"title": "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task",
"author": [
{
"given": "Nataliya",
"family": "Kosmyna"
},
{
"given": "Eugene",
"family": "Hauptmann"
},
{
"given": "Ye Tong",
"family": "Yuan"
},
{
"given": "Jessica",
"family": "Situ"
},
{
"given": "Xian-Hao",
"family": "Liao"
},
{
"given": "Ashly Vivian",
"family": "Beresnitzky"
},
{
"given": "Iris",
"family": "Braunstein"
},
{
"given": "Pattie",
"family": "Maes"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2025,
6
]
]
},
"number": "2506.08872",
"container-title": "arXiv"
}
Claims
-
In an EEG study of 54 participants across three sessions writing essays with a large language model, with a search engine, or with no tools, the LLM group showed the weakest brain connectivity; an additional fourth session with role reversal involved 18 participants.
"Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4... EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity."
Available in