A computational account of learning and memory

什么是记忆？人们怎么能不尝试就学会呢？什么是直觉，它是如何发展起来的？我的研究计划就是为了回答这些问题。为了实现这一目标，我和我的学生开发了描述人类学习和记忆的数学模型的计算机模型。通过将记忆表示为特定经验的存储并并行提取这些记忆，我们已经能够解释人们如何对世界上的规律变得敏感，他们如何学习预测即将发生的事件，以及为什么某些类型的记忆在健忘症中幸免于难，而另一些类型则丢失。目前提案中的研究建立在我们以前审查三个新问题的努力的基础上。我们如何在不刻意努力的情况下做出明智的推断？为什么有些类型的学习会随着年龄的增长而变得更难，而另一些类型的学习却很容易呢？直觉是一种特殊的过程，还是仅仅是认知记忆的伪装？我和我的学生将通过计算机建模和实验室实验相结合的方式为这些重要问题提供答案和解决方案。

What is memory? How do people learn without even trying? What is intuition and how does it develop? My research program is aimed at answering these questions. To achieve this goal my students and I develop computer models that describe the mathematics of human learning and memory. By representing memory as a store of specific experiences and retrieving those memories in parallel, we have been able to explain how people become sensitive to regularities in the world, how they learn to anticipate upcoming events, and why some kinds of memory are spared in amnesia whereas others are lost. Research in the current proposal builds on our previous efforts to examine three new questions. How do we make smart inferences without deliberate effort? Why do some kinds of learning get harder with age whereas others remain easy? Is intuition a special process or is it just recognition memory disguised? My students and I will provide answers and solutions to these important questions by a combination of computer modelling and laboratory experiments.