The analysis of associative structures implies that, ceteris paribus, associations are symmetric in their causal effects: if a thinker has a bond between  salt/pepper,  then  salt should bring about pepper just as well as   pepper brings about  salt (for extensive discussion of the symmetry point see Quilty-Dunn and Mandelbaum 2019). But all else is rarely equal. For example, behaviorists such as Thorndike, Hull, and Skinner knew that the order of learning affected the causal sequence of recall: if one is always hearing “salt and pepper” then salt will be more poised to  activate  pepper than  pepper to activate salt. So, included in the ceteris paribus clause in the analysis of associative structures is the idealization that the learning of the associative elements was equally well randomized in order.