Episodic memory: A hierarchy of spatiotemporal concepts

Abstract

We propose a new model of episodic memory. It consists of a hierarchy of partial sequences of events, blended for consistency across space and time by feedforward/feedback links to concepts expressing their shared information. This blended concept hierarchy is acquired and represented incrementally through synaptic or connection-weighted adaptation in a neural network with episodic memory capability. We derive this model through argumentation, explain its derivation within a category-theoretic model of representation, and discuss the capabilities we propose for this model.