in section one, on half of the versions, recall of owned 
things was placed first and on half things not owned were 
placed first. In section two, the 20 recall items, one per 
page, were randomly ordered for each version, and the 12 
criteria on each page were randomly ordered as well. Code 
numbers in the upper right hand corner of the questionnaire 
identified the randomization seed number, the copy number, 
and the recall order. All questionnaires were printed on 8 
inch by 14 inch, perforated, lined computer paper. 
Procedure 
After consent to participate was given, the subjects’ 
first task was to list exemplars of things owned and things 
not owned. In contrast to traditional free recall studies 
using classroom students as subjects (Bousfield & Sedgewick, 
1944; Battig & Montague, 1946), the subjects in this study 
knew the topics of both free recall tasks prior to 
commencing the tasks. This was as a result of both the 
informed consent process and subjects’ insistence on viewing 
the questionnaire before consenting. To assure that all 
subjects had equal prior exposure to the recall categories, 
both recall tasks were displayed on the front page of the 
questionnaire. Thus, there was an unknown amount of mental 
preparation for the recall tasks. 
The original plan of the study was to have subjects do