Individuals with higher working memory are more strategic offloaders but also greater forgetters

The present study investigated the effect of working memory ability on strategic offloading behavior as well as the subsequent recall of valuable information when the external store becomes surprisingly unavailable. Participants completed a battery of working memory tasks followed by a value-directed remembering task wherein they studied lists of words paired with point values counting toward their score if recalled and were allowed to offload some of the words. On the first four lists, offloaded words were accessible during the test. However, on the fifth list, the offloaded words were not available on the test, and this was a surprise to some of the participants. Participants were then given a sixth list wherein they were told that the offloaded words may or may not be available on the test (the offloaded words were not available). Results revealed that individuals with high working memory were more strategic in their offloading decisions, preferring to offload the highest valued items. However, when the offloaded words were surprisingly unavailable, participants with high working memory ability showed poorer, even negative memory selectivity relative to individuals with low working memory (i.e., they were unable to recall those high-value words that they offloaded). Thus, the cost of offloading might be more dangerous to individuals with high working memory ability, and the present study illustrated a paradox whereby having a high working memory ability and being more strategic can become detrimental. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).