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Abstract
Cognitively offloading onto external memory aids is understudied within the memory literature. I replicated Morrison and Richmond’s (2020) finding that working memory capacity is not related to offloading and that offloading provides a greater benefit at higher set sizes. Participants were presented lists of 2 to 10 letters to remember, half of the time they could choose to type the letters and half of the time they could not. Working memory capacity was measured using two complex span tasks. Fifty-seven participants (15 men, 2 non-binary people, and 40 women) completed the study remotely on personal computers. A 2 x 5 within-subjects ANOVA showed a significant main effect of set size and condition and a significant interaction (p < .001). The correlation between working memory capacity and offloading was insignificant, (p = .89). I conclude that offloading provides greater benefits at high set sizes and memory capacity does not affect offloading.
