The effect of surface similarities on the retrieval of analogous daily-life events

Abstract

Against the typical results of laboratory studies, it has been suggested that retrieving distant analogs from autobiographical memory would be relatively easy, since we frequently encode daily-life events in terms of overlearned relational categories that allow for a uniform abstract encoding. In each of two experiments, we formed two groups of participants who, as determined by a questionnaire presented during a first session, had experienced an event corresponding to a schema-governed category (Experiment 1) or to a system of schema-governed categories (Experiment 2). While the episodes reported by one of the groups belonged to the same domain as the target analog to be presented during the second session, those of the other group belonged to a different domain. During a temporally and contextually separated session, the experimenters presented both groups with a target analog belonging to the schema-governed category for which participants had reported a base analog. Participants had to retrieve an autobiographical episode that they considered analogous to the situation presented by the experimenter. From those analogs reported in the first phase, those pertaining to the same domain of the target were more retrieved than those pertaining to a different domain. Results showed that analogical retrieval is driven largely by surface similarities, even when base and target analogs have been encoded in terms of the same schema-governed category.