Retrieval and Organizational Strategies in Conceptual Memory: A Computer Model

Abstract : People effortlessly recall past events and episodes in their lives many times in the course of a normal day. A reasonable goal in the design of computer programs is to construct a memory with that same capability. To facilitate human-like retrieval of events from a computer memory, we must first specify a reasonable memory organization. We must then design updating and retrieval processes to build up and access that information. This thesis will present such a theory, and will describe a computer program called CYRUS which implements that theory. CYRUS (Computerized Yale Retrieval and Updating System) stores and retrieves episodes in the lives of Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie. When new events are added to its memory, CYRUS integrates them into memory along with the events it already knows about. CYRUS can then answer questions posed to it in English about the events it stores. The algorithms and memory organization used in CYRUS have been developed by examining the way people answer questions requiring extensive memory search. Its reconstructive processes include instantiation strategies, which construct and elaborate on contexts for search, and search strategies, which direct construction.