The gist of it: offloading memory does not reduce the benefit of list categorisation.

Abstract

When we can offload to-be-remembered information to an external store, our ability to recall that information from internal memory can be diminished. However, previous research has suggested that associative memory processes may remain intact in the face of offloading behavior. In the present investigation, we examine how the opportunity to offload memory demands affects the learning of categorized word lists. Across six experiments, participants studied and wrote down word lists that were either strongly associated with a semantic theme (categorized) or word lists that consisted of the same set of words but shuffled across the categorized lists (shuffled). When participants expected to have access to their written lists during the recall test (i.e., a condition that would encourage offloading) but were not given access to it, we found the typical recall advantage for categorized lists. This effect was found to be the same size or larger compared to a condition where participants did not expect to have access to their written lists during the recall test (i.e., a condition that would not allow offloading). We propose that gist memory supported by semantic associations is not substantially reduced in offloading.