Thanks Cian! Yes I think that’s right - likely some partial information retained (interesting question exactly what), and/or also pointer to where to find info rather than content itself. Would love to do more studies to look into this

Collaborative work with Chiara Scarampi, Chhavi Sachdeva & Pei-Chun Tsai. Data and code are on OSF osf.io/sk468/overview

We argue that this "digital amnesia" is an adaptive process that prioritises the brain's limited-capacity systems for the most valuable information.

There was evidence for a sustained neural trace of the earlier stimulus in the Remember condition, but it faded until it was statistically absent in the Offload and Forget conditions, which did not differ from each other.

Participants viewed pictures of faces or scenes, then they got a cue to Remember (for a memory test), Forget (there will be no test), or Offload (the memory test will come with a reminder). Brain activity to Offload cues closely resembled Forget cues.