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

OLGUÍN, M. VALERIA; TAVERNINI, L. MICAELA; TRENCH, MÁXIMO; MINERVINO, RICARDO A.

Memory & Cognition

Springer

Lugar: New York; Año: 2022

0090-502X

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