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He was beside himself. The gold coin that his mother had left him in her will was missing. "I can see myself walking around the house flipping it and putting it in my pocket and taking it out again," he muttered to himself. He had been playing with it all morning. He could not understand how he could be so careless with it.

"I'll retrace my steps," he said out loud to himself as he headed for the basement where he had begun meandering around that morning. Half way down the steps he realized that he had not turned on the lights, so he returned to the landing and flicked on the lights.

Once in the basement, he made his way to the workshop where he had been milling around, trying to plan a new project. He approached a workbench where he had left various small objects he thought he might use in the new project. There was a bolt in the middle of these several items. At the upper right edge of these items there was a long nail, but no gold coin was among the items.

He looked in the drawer beneath the bench-top. The coin was not there. "Ok," he thought, "What was I doing next....The bedroom, that was the next place I went." So he rushed from the workshop and bounded up the stairs. Once on the landing he charged into the hallway that lead to the kitchen and the living room. He turned left to the living room where another staircase led up to the bedroom. Just before he reached the stairs, he slapped himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand..."I forgot to turn off the basement lights!" Quickly he retraced his steps, turned off the lights and was back to the staircase leading to the upstairs bedroom.

Once upstairs, he made a right turn into their bedroom and hustled over to his wife's dressing table. He had been there earlier trying to find his comb, which his wife often borrowed. On the dressing table top he found an assortment of hair-care and make-up items. There were some tweezers in the middle of the items arrayed on the table top. On the far left edge of these items there was a large hand mirror.

Impulsively he opened the drawers beneath the table top as he had done earlier in a vain attempt to find his comb. "Maybe I dropped it into one of the drawers when I was looking for the comb," he murmured to himself. But a search of the drawers turned up no coin or comb. "Where did I go next?" he asked aloud. After a moment he remembered that he had been down in the living room playing with the little animal figurines he and his wife collected. Quickly he hurried down the stairs, into the living room, and over to the marble topped table where he had been playing with the animal figurines. A little mouse was in the middle of the other animals and a rabbit was at the top middle of the array of figurines, just as he had left them.

He looked carefully between the table's long legs, but the coin was not there. Now he was growing desperate. His wife would be home soon and he couldn't face telling her he had lost the coin. "I know, I went back to the basement," he said almost loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Quickly he was back into the hallway and onto the landing leading to the basement. He slapped at the light switch as he ran down the stairs. He rapidly made his way back into the workshop and searched for some tools he had laid out on an old wooden bench. There they were, surrounding a saw. At the top middle of the arrangement of tools there was a large plumber's wrench.

He looked among them and then searched the grimy floor beneath the table. No sign of the coin. This time he didn't even think. He just ran to the stairs, took them two steps at a time, and burst through the hallway into the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. Instead of turning right into their bedroom, he turned left into the office they shared. Quickly he went over to their desk where he looked down at several items they had recently used that were crowded around a magic marker. At the upper left edge of the items there was a stapler.

He picked among the several objects on the desk top, hoping to find the coin, but, alas, it was not there. "One more possibility," he thought. He had been sitting at the kitchen table when he discovered that the coin was missing. Impulsively he had jumped up to look elsewhere for it. Maybe it had been misplaced in the kitchen. Once again he bounded down the stairs into the hallway. When he entered the kitchen, he immediately saw the place setting that his wife had left set-up the night before. She was experimenting with settings for an upcoming party. He had been sitting in the chair in front of the setting. Again he sat down in front of the plate she had left which was the centerpiece of the setting. At the lower left hand corner of the setting there was a tall, glass beverage mug.

He searched the table top, then he scooted the chair back and looked under the table. No coin. Now thoroughly angry with himself, he sat back and covered his face with his hands. Then he lowered his face into his lap. When he finally removed his hands and began to lift his head, he saw something shiny concealed behind the table leg nearest him. He dropped to his knees and grabbed the coin and kissed it, just as he heard his wife come through the front door.

That is the end of the slide show. Now you need to click the link below and go to the next phase, but first there is an important point to be made. It is vitally important that YOU NOT RETURN TO THIS SITE once you go on to the next phase. If you do return to look at this site, your memory test responses, to be recorded later, will be useless to me and I will have to throw them out. Further, you will not be able to get any valid and correct information about your memory. If, on the other hand, you are patient and complete the study, at the end you will find an address where you can reach me and get feedback on how well you performed during memory testing. So, if you are willing to complete the entire study without returning here, please click the link button now and go to the next phase.