The dynamics of updating and transmitting individual and collective memories

记忆和文化构成了人类知识的基础。几代人之间的知识积累推动着科学进步、技术进步，并通过共享的社会规范来维持社会。理解形成记忆和文化传播的基本认知过程传统上属于心理学家和人类学家的范畴。然而，在社会科学以外的领域，包括统计学、机器学习、进化动力学和网络科学的进步，提供了一套丰富的计算技术来描述个人和群体中的信息传递，这些技术可以有效地应用于理解记忆维持和文化传播。这个计划如果成功，将创建一个软件平台，用于在线运行个人和文化记忆的实验，从而使其他人能够使用这些范例进行他们自己的实验。此外，公众期待记忆研究，希望有一天能提供技术来帮助他们记住更多。更好地理解影响个人和集体记忆维持的过程，将揭示记忆和文化创新最好地维持的条件，以及改进它们的可能技术。实现这一目标的任何进展都将为社会带来重大利益。拟议项目成果的计划传播旨在通过文化记忆动态的可视化来增加公众对科学的理解。该研究员有支持包容和扩大参与的公众参与和活动的历史，并将继续参与这些活动。这个项目的目标是构建能够捕捉记忆和文化的认知动态的计算模型，其最终目标是理解（并最终控制和改进）塑造它们的过程。该项目采用行为实验、模拟和分析计算来确定三种情境下个人和文化记忆的认知动态。目标1考虑短期记忆更新的动态。目标2考虑了当个人对他们所处的社会环境有不同数量的信息时，更新文化传播知识的动态。目标3考虑了文化记忆中学习的动态，探索个体是否可以调整自己的行为以更好地维持群体记忆。每个目标都将认知过程与机器学习、进化动力学和网络科学中的正式工具联系起来。

Memory and culture form the foundation of human knowledge. The accumulation of knowledge across generations drives scientific progress, technological advancement, and the maintenance of societies through shared social norms. Understanding the fundamental cognitive processes that shape memory and cultural transmission has traditionally fallen within the purview of psychologists and anthropologists. However, advances in fields beyond the social sciences, including statistics, machine learning, evolutionary dynamics, and network science offer a rich set of computational techniques for describing information transfer in individuals and groups that can be fruitfully applied to understand memory maintenance and cultural transmission. The proposed project, if successul, will create a software platform for running experiments on personal and cultural memory online, thereby enabling others to conduct their own experiments using these paradigms. Additionally, the public looks toward memory research with the hope that it will one day provide techniques to help them remember more. Better understanding the processes that affect maintenance of personal and collective memories will reveal the conditions under which memories and cultural innovations are best maintained and possible techniques for improving them. Any progress towards this goal would provide a major benefit to society. Planned dissemination of the results of the proposed project are aimed at increasing public understanding of science through visualization of cultural memory dynamics. The Fellow has a history of public engagement and activities supporting inclusion and broadening participation, and continues to be engaged in these activities.The goal of the proposed project is to construct computational models that capture the cognitive dynamics of memory and culture, with the ultimate goal of understanding (and eventually controlling and improving) the processes that shape them. The proposed project uses behavioral experiments, simulations, and analytic calculations to determine the cognitive dynamics of personal and cultural memory in three settings. Objective 1 considers the dynamics of updating in short-term memory. Objective 2 considers the dynamics of updating culturally-transmitted knowledge when individuals have varying amounts of information about the social context in which they are placed. Objective 3 considers the dynamics of learning in cultural memory, exploring whether individuals can adjust their own behavior to better sustain memories in a group. Each objective makes connections between cognitive processes and formal tools from machine learning, evolutionary dynamics, and network science.