An Investigation of the Saving-Enhanced Memory Effect: The Role of Test Order and List Saving

Saving information onto external resources can improve memory for subsequent information. This article reports two preregistered online experiments investigating A) whether the saving-enhanced memory effect holds when to-be-remembered information is presented before the saved information and B) whether people typically choose the most advantageous strategy when given a free choice of which list to offload. Participants encoded two lists of words; recall order was manipulated. Experiment 1 also manipulated whether and which list was saved and found that saving List A led to a memory enhancement for List B only when it was recalled first. Saving List B did not enhance recall for List A. In experiment 2, participants chose their preferred strategy. They saved List A significantly more often than List B, but only when List B was tested first. These findings suggest boundary conditions for the saving-enhanced memory effect and that people typically offload with the optimal strategy.