Efficiently implementing episodic memory

Abstract

Endowing an intelligent agent with an episodic memory affords it a multitude of cognitive capabilities. However, providing efficient storage and retrieval in a task-independent episodic memory presents considerable theoretical and practical challenges. We characterize the computational issues bounding an episodic memory. We explore whether even with intractable asymptotic growth, it is possible to develop efficient algorithms and data structures for episodic memory systems that are practical for real-world tasks. We present and evaluate formal and empirical results using Soar-EpMem: a task-independent integration of episodic memory with Soar 9, providing a baseline for graph-based, task-independent episodic memory systems. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.