the free recall of owned and not owned things in the
presence of the experimenter to assure that the recall was
done in one sitting without interruptions or consultation
with outside sources. However, because subjects were being
recruited in their work places, many who agreed to
participate claimed that they could not take the time from
work to do any of the questionnaire. Thus, for 57 subjects
(39 females, 18 males), the recall tasks were done in the
presence of the experimenter, and for 63 subjects (31
females, 42 males), recall was done with the experimenter
absent. However, all subjects completed the second, third
and fourth sections of the questionnaire on their own and
returned the completed forms by mail.
The actual recall items, of course, exhibited
considerable variability in both content and expression. To
reduce this heterogeneity prior to tabulation and analysis,
the recall responses were systemized by three post hoc
methods. First, the expressions of the recall items were
standardized by the following rules: 1) modifiers were
placed after the generic noun, e.g. "a new Ford truck"
became "truck (a new Ford)"; 2) items that consisted only
of brand names were given a preceding generic name, e.g.
"Cuisinart" became "food processor (Cuisinart)"; 3) common
spellings were given to such words as barbeque, fridge.
jewellery, clothes, skiis, swimming pool, tennis racquet;