Abstract
Cognitive offloading is a valuable strategy for retaining information, especially under cognitive overload (Morrison & Richmond, 2020). The current study investigated offloading in a working memory task with set sizes of 4, 8, and 12 letters. In half the trials, participants could offload letters by typing notes to use at test. A 2 (offloading-choice vs. no-choice) by 3 (4, 8, and 12 set sizes) within-subjects ANOVA revealed two significant main effects, along with a significant interaction (p < .001). As predicted, performance improved with the choice to offload and declined as set size increased. There was also an interaction where the benefits of offloading increased with set size with the largest at set size 12. Frequency and accuracy of offloading as well as individual difference factors relating to offloading choice were examined. The findings suggested that while offloading aids memory performance, the factors influencing the decision to offload remain unclear.