Specifying the mechanisms behind benefits of saving-enhanced memory

By saving information on external memory stores, we can offload temporarily irrelevant memories, we believe to be important in the future. The external saving of encoded items enhances subsequent memory performance for new information (Storm and Stone in Psychol Sci 26(2):182–188, 2015). Across three experiments, we replicated and specified this saving-enhanced memory effect. In Experiment 1, we replicated the benefits of saving and showed that they are robust against changes in instructions. In Experiment 2, we extended the saving-enhanced memory effect to motor material and more important, found evidence for better encoding after saving. In Experiment 3, a cost effect for saved verbal material was present, indicating that externally saving information can reduce the accessibility for this information afterwards. These findings suggest that at least two factors contribute to benefits of saving, better encoding and reduced interference at recall. Hereby, similarities of saving-enhanced memory to effects of the list-method directed forgetting phenomenon and useful implications for our daily information management are provided.