Subjects took part in 5 trials, during each of which they viewed a list of words and then were tested on it in two ways, inclusion and exclusion. All of the words were five letters in length with a three-letter word stem that could be completed in at least two ways to make an English word. A total of 178 words were used for the experiment. One hundred twenty of these words were from a list of words used by Jacoby (1998) and were assigned to four experimental trials. Each experimental trial also had an additional five words at the beginning and end of each list to avoid primacy and recency effects. Another 18 words were used in a practice trial set at the beginning of the study
After the participant completed reading through the list of words, a screen appeared with the instructions for both the exclusion condition (avoid completion with previously viewed words) and the inclusion condition (respond as quickly as possible, without regard to the list). The subject was then instructed to complete a set of word stems using the exclusion condition. After the exclusion condition was complete, the participant was again shown the instructions screen with both the instructions for the inclusion and exclusion and was instructed to start the inclusion condition.