"Schema abstraction" in a multiple-trace memory model.

Abstract

A simulation model of episodic memory, MINERVA 2, is applied to the learning of concepts, as represented bythe schema-abstraction task. The model assumes that each experience produces a separate memory trace and that knowledge of abstract oncepts i derived from the pool of episodic traces at the time of retrieval. A retrieval cue contacts all traces imultaneously, activating each according to its similarity to the cue, and the information retrieved from memory reflects the summed content of all activated traces responding in parallel. The MINERVA 2 model is able to retrieve an abstracted prototype of the category when cued with the category name and to retrieve and disambiguate a category name when cued with a category exemplar. The model successfully predicts basic findings from the schema-abstraction literature (.g., differential forgetting of proto-types and old instances, typicality, and category size effects), including some that have been cited as evidence against exemplar theories of concepts. The model is compared to other classification models, and its implications regarding the abstraction problem are discussed. How is abstract knowledge related to specific experience? In present-day terms, this question concerns the relationship be-tween episodic and generic memories. This article explores the

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