Memory Science
The cognitive science and neural foundations behind machine memory — from Hopfield nets and Hebbian learning to consolidation.
10 articles
Multimodal Memory: Cross-Modal Binding in AI
Multimodal memory binds text, image, and audio into one representation; a sourced guide to the binding problem, TPR, VSA/HDC, SDM, and modern Hopfield networks.
Self-Organizing Memory: ART, SOM & Growing Neural Gas
Self-organizing memory systems explained: Adaptive Resonance Theory, Self-Organizing Maps, and Growing Neural Gas, including GNG-U utility-based pruning.
Episodic vs Semantic Memory: Tulving for AI Agents
Tulving's episodic vs semantic split is a design decision for AI agents: an event log beside a fact store, plus a step deciding when episodes become facts.
Types of Memory: Why So Many Names?
Memory has dozens of named kinds because no one has drawn its boundary. A guided tour of the list, the reasons it grew, and why the seams never close.
Schema Formation: How Memory Builds Reusable Structure
Schema theory explains how memory turns episodes into reusable structure. For AI agent memory, it clarifies why episodes and consolidation should stay separate.
Working Memory: Capacity, Models, and AI Context
Working memory is the bounded active workspace of cognition; its capacity debate (Miller's 7 vs Cowan's 4) and models map onto AI context-window design.
Bernard Widrow: From the LMS Rule to Cognitive Memory
Bernard Widrow's 1960 LMS delta rule taught machines to learn and still runs in adaptive filtering; late in life he turned to content-addressable memory.
Geoffrey Hinton: The Boltzmann Machine and Generative Memory
Geoffrey Hinton's 1985 Boltzmann machine made memory generative: a stochastic, energy-based network with hidden units that learns a distribution and samples it.
Jeff Hawkins: Memory Exists to Predict
Jeff Hawkins argues the brain is a memory system for prediction; Hierarchical Temporal Memory uses sparse representations, sequences, and continual learning.
Hopfield Networks: The Memory Model That Became Attention
John Hopfield's 1982 associative memory — basis of his 2024 Nobel — stores patterns in an energy landscape; Transformer attention is one read from it.