3,554 research outputs found
Lifelong Learning of Spatiotemporal Representations with Dual-Memory Recurrent Self-Organization
Artificial autonomous agents and robots interacting in complex environments
are required to continually acquire and fine-tune knowledge over sustained
periods of time. The ability to learn from continuous streams of information is
referred to as lifelong learning and represents a long-standing challenge for
neural network models due to catastrophic forgetting. Computational models of
lifelong learning typically alleviate catastrophic forgetting in experimental
scenarios with given datasets of static images and limited complexity, thereby
differing significantly from the conditions artificial agents are exposed to.
In more natural settings, sequential information may become progressively
available over time and access to previous experience may be restricted. In
this paper, we propose a dual-memory self-organizing architecture for lifelong
learning scenarios. The architecture comprises two growing recurrent networks
with the complementary tasks of learning object instances (episodic memory) and
categories (semantic memory). Both growing networks can expand in response to
novel sensory experience: the episodic memory learns fine-grained
spatiotemporal representations of object instances in an unsupervised fashion
while the semantic memory uses task-relevant signals to regulate structural
plasticity levels and develop more compact representations from episodic
experience. For the consolidation of knowledge in the absence of external
sensory input, the episodic memory periodically replays trajectories of neural
reactivations. We evaluate the proposed model on the CORe50 benchmark dataset
for continuous object recognition, showing that we significantly outperform
current methods of lifelong learning in three different incremental learning
scenario
The spectro-contextual encoding and retrieval theory of episodic memory.
The spectral fingerprint hypothesis, which posits that different frequencies of oscillations underlie different cognitive operations, provides one account for how interactions between brain regions support perceptual and attentive processes (Siegel etal., 2012). Here, we explore and extend this idea to the domain of human episodic memory encoding and retrieval. Incorporating findings from the synaptic to cognitive levels of organization, we argue that spectrally precise cross-frequency coupling and phase-synchronization promote the formation of hippocampal-neocortical cell assemblies that form the basis for episodic memory. We suggest that both cell assembly firing patterns as well as the global pattern of brain oscillatory activity within hippocampal-neocortical networks represents the contents of a particular memory. Drawing upon the ideas of context reinstatement and multiple trace theory, we argue that memory retrieval is driven by internal and/or external factors which recreate these frequency-specific oscillatory patterns which occur during episodic encoding. These ideas are synthesized into a novel model of episodic memory (the spectro-contextual encoding and retrieval theory, or "SCERT") that provides several testable predictions for future research
How informative are spatial CA3 representations established by the dentate gyrus?
In the mammalian hippocampus, the dentate gyrus (DG) is characterized by
sparse and powerful unidirectional projections to CA3 pyramidal cells, the
so-called mossy fibers. Mossy fiber synapses appear to duplicate, in terms of
the information they convey, what CA3 cells already receive from entorhinal
cortex layer II cells, which project both to the dentate gyrus and to CA3.
Computational models of episodic memory have hypothesized that the function of
the mossy fibers is to enforce a new, well separated pattern of activity onto
CA3 cells, to represent a new memory, prevailing over the interference produced
by the traces of older memories already stored on CA3 recurrent collateral
connections. Can this hypothesis apply also to spatial representations, as
described by recent neurophysiological recordings in rats? To address this
issue quantitatively, we estimate the amount of information DG can impart on a
new CA3 pattern of spatial activity, using both mathematical analysis and
computer simulations of a simplified model. We confirm that, also in the
spatial case, the observed sparse connectivity and level of activity are most
appropriate for driving memory storage and not to initiate retrieval.
Surprisingly, the model also indicates that even when DG codes just for space,
much of the information it passes on to CA3 acquires a non-spatial and episodic
character, akin to that of a random number generator. It is suggested that
further hippocampal processing is required to make full spatial use of DG
inputs.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, 1 table, submitte
Semantic memory
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