Fig. 2

Schematic illustration of the intention offloading task. The main task was to move the circles out of the square in their correct order (1 to 10). Prior to each trial, participants were presented with an instruction (A), informing them about three target circles. They were then faced with 10, randomly arranged circles (B). During initial task practice and Phase 1, all initial stimuli appeared on the screen already charged (i.e. filled yellow) and intention offloading was not possible. Prior to the second phase, intention offloading was made possible. A brief practice phase ensured that participants got used to the idea of freely moving the circles around prior to each trial. A compulsory step of ‘charging’ the circles was, therefore, included. Participants were presented with the 10 circles randomly arranged in addition to a ‘battery’. Participants were instructed that they had to move all circles over the battery to ‘charge’ them, colouring them yellow, before continuing with the task (B.2a; ‘Battery’ Practice). During this step, they were allowed to set reminders. Note that the three example paths of the target circles (C.1a) led across the battery, but that participants could just as well choose to move the circles without charging them, as well as charge them without cognitively offloading. These steps were slightly altered during the last practice trial that led into Phase 2 (‘Click’ Practice): the ‘uncharged’ circles appeared without the battery (B.2b). Before any circles could be moved out of the square, each had to be ‘charged’ by clicking on it or moving it (C.2b). The trial started and the default border over which circles had to be dragged to remove them was the bottom border (D). Before the first target circle was reached an arithmetic verification task was presented (E). After submitting a response, participants continued with the next circle, in this example by moving the first target circle off the square (F). The trial ended once all circles had been removed