Accumulative memory

Despite universal agreement that the cardinal feature of human memory is its ability to accumulate information about the world, cognitive research has been rather timid in pursuing the implications of this remarkable capacity. Of course, production models and connectionist models address some of these issues, albeit in different ways. Knowledge compilation in ACT* and chunking in SOAR create new entries in procedural memory without expunging earlier entries. Entries that are incorrect are either left to decay or become marooned in unvisited niches of a problem space. Within the connectionist paradigm, matters are much more fluid. New experiences are continually forcing adjustments in connection strengths and it makes little sense to contrast new against old forms of knowledge. New entries are not addded into the repertoire so much as blended with what existed before.