Summary: When we recall past events, our memory relies more on deep structural similarities and the core meaning of situations than on superficial features such as setting or characters.
Source: University of Geneva
What cues does memory use to link a present situation with a past one? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with CY Cergy Paris Université, challenge the conventional view that people rely mainly on surface similarities to retrieve memories. Their experiments show that structural similarities — the underlying relations and core issues of a situation — guide recall far more than surface features like theme, setting, or protagonists. Only when participants lack the knowledge needed to recognize structural parallels do they fall back on the more obvious surface cues.
The findings, published in the journal Acta Psychologica, carry important implications for education. They suggest teaching should emphasize conceptual and structural aspects of material so students learn to identify relevant features, rather than being misled by superficial resemblances.
Psychological models of memory traditionally distinguish two types of features: surface features (superficial elements such as location, objects, or people) and structural features (the deeper relations, causal patterns, or central issues of an event). Earlier literature has argued that surface features often dominate retrieval because they are easier to access and because surface and structural features frequently correlate. Emmanuel Sander, professor at UNIGE’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE), notes that researchers thought people chose the “easiest” cue during recall and that surface similarity typically aligns with deeper similarity.
However, the UNIGE and CY Cergy Paris team re-examined this assumption by addressing two issues they identified in prior studies: many previous experiments used stimuli that combined surface and structural overlap to some degree, and participants often lacked the background knowledge needed to perceive deeper structure. Lucas Raynal, a researcher at CY Cergy Paris Université and FPSE associate member, explains that the team wanted to test whether structure alone could outrank surface similarity when triggering recall.
Structure outweighs form
To test their hypothesis, researchers wrote six short narratives that either shared the surface features, shared the structure, or shared neither with a target story. The target tale described two pizzeria owners, Luigi and Lorenzo. Luigi, the established pizzaiolo, worked in a busy square; Lorenzo opened a competing pizzeria next door. Lorenzo’s pizzas were inferior, so Luigi advised him on technique. In response, Lorenzo relocated his shop to avoid direct competition. Some source stories emphasized the pizzaiolo characters (surface similarity); others emphasized the competitive-resolved principle (structural similarity); the remaining stories acted as unrelated distractors.
In the first experiment, 81 adult volunteers read the six source stories and then read the target story about Luigi and Lorenzo. They were asked which earlier story the target reminded them of. An overwhelming 81.5% selected the source that shared the same structure (the resolved competition), while only 18.5% selected the story that shared surface elements (pizzaioli) and none chose distractors. This result indicates a clear structural preference in recall, in contrast with the prevailing emphasis on surface similarity.
The researchers ran three more experiments to confirm the finding and to approximate real-world memory demands. In Experiment 2 they increased the number of surface-similar stories to better simulate ecological conditions. Experiments 3 and 4 raised the difficulty by increasing the number of stories and introducing delays and unrelated distractor tasks (a 5-minute delay in Experiment 3 and a 45-minute delay in Experiment 4) before presenting the target. Across all four experiments, about 80% of participants consistently chose the structurally similar story rather than any superficially similar or unrelated story, demonstrating the robustness of structural retrieval cues.
Implications for teaching and learning
These results call into question the common belief that memory operates primarily by choosing the easiest, most accessible surface cues. According to professor Sander, memorization appears to be less superficial than previously assumed and tends to favor structural information. When students do not yet grasp the underlying concepts of what they are learning, however, they are more likely to rely on superficial similarities — a risk in many educational settings.
Professor Evelyne Clément of CY Cergy Paris Université emphasizes the pedagogical takeaway: teachers should explicitly highlight the conceptual and structural features of examples used in class. Helping learners categorize situations by their underlying principles — rather than by surface traits — will improve students’ ability to transfer learning to new contexts and avoid being misled by irrelevant similarities.
Source:
University of Geneva
Media contacts:
Emmanuel Sander – University of Geneva
Image source:
The image is in the public domain.
Original research: Closed access
Title: “Are Superficially Dissimilar Analogs better retrieved than Superficially Similar Disanalogs?” — Emmanuel Sander et al.
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.102989.
Abstract (summary)
The study tested whether structural similarity alone serves as a stronger retrieval cue than surface similarity alone. Across four story-recall experiments, participants received multiple source stories followed by a target cue that matched either in surface or structure. Experiments varied the number of superficially similar distractors and introduced delays and additional stories to mirror common paradigms. Results consistently support the dominance of structural over surface similarities in analogical retrieval and discuss why structurally similar analogs are retrieved more often than superficially similar disanalogs in these conditions.