External Memory

Information held outside the brain — in notes, calendars, photographs, voice recordings, alarms, labelled objects, or digital systems — that a person draws on to remember names, dates, tasks, procedures, or autobiographical content. External memory is a core accessibility resource for people with memory-related conditions (Mild Cognitive Impairment, dementia, aphasia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, ADHD) and for older adults managing Subjective Cognitive Decline, but it is also routinely used by the general population. Distributed-cognition research emphasises that cognition is an emergent property of interactions between internal resources (memory, attention) and external ones (objects, environments, other people), so accessible design should protect and amplify external-memory practices rather than treat them as inferior substitutes for recall.