Cognitive Offloading is defined as the use of external resources to minimize cognitive demand. Although this definition implies an additional action and therefore physical effort to be exerted, the influence of such physical effort on Cognitive Offloading Behaviour has not or only insufficiently been investigated. Through a custom-designed electromagnetic rotation knob a varying resistance was made possible to investigate the influences of physical effort on decision making in the context of Cognitive Offloading. This also allowed for hand motion tracking (as is done in a typical mouse tracking setup) to achieve a deeper understanding of the influence of physical effort on the decision making process.

An extension of the mental rotation paradigm is used to either rotate a working stimulus mentally or manually. As a manipulation of effort the rotation knobs' resistance (physical) and the presentation angle of the working stimulus (mental) were varied. Confounds of physical effort with time were eliminated.

Participants use the option to offload the rotation process to the knob more often when the physical effort it takes to do so is low. There is evidence that physical effort is taken into account as part of a value based decision making process. The time individuals took to initiate a hand movement does reveal that for the high physical effort condition individuals experience greater decision conflict.

The paradigm used here can replicate common findings of the field as well as add new and promising insights into the decision making process when it comes to Cognitive Offloading.