Challenging the superficial similarities superiority account for analogical retrieval

International audienceThe predominant view concerning determinants of analogical retrieval is that it is preferentially guided by superficial cues. In order to test the cognitive plausibility of a structural similarities-based retrieval, we constructed a story-recall task in which lifelike scenarios shared structural correspondences. In Experiment 1, we showed that such structural similarities induce retrievals when the participant had several source candidate situations sharing superficial similarities with the target cue. Experiment 2 was designed to test whether the encoding was sufficiently oriented on structural similarities to drive retrievals, even if the participants possess only one source candidate situation with superficial matches in memory. The results of the two present experiments lead us to conclude that in some contexts, abstract encoding induces a superiority of structural similarities over superficial ones in retrieval. Further implications for analogical retrieval approaches are discussed