D: Memory and learning

What memory architectures enable a system to acquire, store and retrieve knowledge and to improve its capabilities through learning? Memory joins perception with experience and allows cognitive processing to generate intelligent action. However, its technical design is still confronted with major problems. What type of memory architecture provides generality, versatility, and scalability? How can cognitivist and emergent system approaches contribute? And finally: what learning approaches enable an autonomously intelligent system to develop mental capabilities that allow it to solve unforeseen problems at the time of design?

CITEC explores multiple memory systems of biological brains in order to identify components and temporal attributes necessary and sufficient to realize a similarly organic memory function on a technical platform. It investigates advanced methods intended to establish and continuously maintain the linkage between conceptual and perceptual entities on the basis of "multimodal anchoring". As a new approach to learning, it transfers a novel teaching strategy derived from the communicative principles of parent-infant interaction. We expect a leap in the quality of the endowment of technical systems, as they become individually attuned to the specific life contexts of their human partners.

Research Topics

• The Brain and Its Architecture
• Active Memories
• Learning and Teaching

Coordinators

• Philipp Cimiano
• Hans Markowitsch

Related Research Project: