Recipient comprehension weakens sender memory

A proposed hypothesis asks whether telling a story to someone who understands it weakens the sender’s source memory. The recipient is permanently unreachable, preventing later recovery. After identical retelling, participants would hear that an unreachable recipient understood the story, it entered an inaccessible private archive, or a matched task was complete. Tests would assess source-detail recall and recognition, forwarding, and version survival. The proposed mechanism is that confirmed understanding ends the sender’s need to retain private details. Lower source-memory access only after recipient comprehension would distinguish it from ordinary offloading or goal completion. The test needs credible confirmations, blocked return access, and prespecified analyses.