One hundred thirty three undergraduate students participated
in a within-subject design. Each participant read a series of 40
statements with instructions to indicate whether they understood
them. Among these statements were four target descriptions, two
of which described a familiar event from a familiar perspective and
the others of which described an unfamiliar event from a familiar
perspective and an unfamiliar event from an unfamiliar perspective.
The time to comprehend each statement was evaluated in a
series of planned comparisons to assess (a) the effect of event
familiarity, holding perspective constant and (b) the effect of perspective
familiarity holding event familiarity constant.