Artificial intelligence or you might call them chatbots may be able to draft a quick essay, but a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveals that relying on them could impair cognitive function.
▪️ A study conducted by MIT’s Media Lab assessed how 54 participants performed when writing essays with the help of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, using only online search engines, or without any external tools.
▪️ The results indicated that those who used ChatGPT exclusively had significantly lower brain activity and generated essays that were less creative and more standardised in format.
▪️ "At this point of technological convergence, it becomes essential to realise the complete range of cognitive effects of language learning model integration," the study says.
Although AI solutions offer much in terms of learning and information access, the researchers emphasised that caution is necessary, considering the potential impact on critical thinking and intellectual autonomy.
How the study was conducted
▪️ The research, conducted by MIT Media Lab research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna, included 54 participants aged between 18 and 39 from MIT, Harvard, Tufts University, Wellesley College, and Northeastern University.
▪️ Participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 18: one group did use only ChatGPT (be it version of their choice); the second used search engines exclusively; and the third used no tools at all, relying solely on their own knowledge and judgement.
▪️ Each participant had 20 mins to complete an essay based on one of three prompts drawn from SAT-style tests. Each group received three prompt options, totalling nine distinct topics overall.
▪️ One of the sample prompts given to the ChatGPT group asked:
“Most people think that loyalty, to a person, an organisation, or a country, is unconditional and unquestioning support at all costs. But doesn't loyalty also demand that we be critical of the ones we are loyal to?”
▪️ All participants wore a Neuroelectrics Enobio 32 headset that recorded their brain’s electrical activity using EEG (electroencephalogram) during the writing task.
▪️ A fourth session was then conducted with 18 participants who switched conditions: those who had previously used ChatGPT were instructed to write without any tools, and vice versa.
What did the research find regarding essay quality?
▪️ Essays produced without the aid of tools were more diverse in subject interpretation, vocabulary, and sentence structure.
▪️ Essays generated with ChatGPT were more homogenous and formulaic.
▪️ Two English teachers and two AI-based assessors graded the essays. The teachers, who were unaware of which essays had been produced using AI, were nonetheless consistently able to identify the ChatGPT-assisted ones.
▪️ “These long essays contained familiar ideas and generic phrasing. We perceived them as ‘soulless’, lacking personal depth and nuance,” the teachers said in a statement included in the report.
▪️ The AI judges, trained to emulate the human markers, generally gave the essays a rating of four or higher on a five-point scale.
What did researchers learn about brain activity?
▪️ Researchers found “robust” evidence that participants who used no tools exhibited the highest and most extensive brain activity.
▪️ The ChatGPT group, by comparison, displayed the weakest, with up to 55% less brain activity than the group that used no tools.
▪️ Participants who used search engines exhibited more eye activity than those who used ChatGPT, even though both were using screens. However, they still never could match the brain activity levels of those working without any external help of any chatbots or other apps.
What’s next for AI research in education?
▪️ The report states that further research is needed to assess whether AI tools such as ChatGPT could have long-term effects on cognitive development.
▪️ The authors pressed onto the importance of conducting future studies with a larger and more demographically diverse samples in other organisations also apart from Universities.
▪️ Recommendations also poured in exploring AI’s role in informal, non-academic environments to better understand its broader influence on decision-making and creativity in everyday life.
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