[lingtalks] Richard M. Shiffrin Talk, February 14th

[Steven Ford]

RICHARD M. SHIFFRIN
Luther Dana Waterman Professor
Professor of Psychology
Director, Cognitive Science Program
Department of Psychology, Indiana University

Tuesday, February 14, 2006 at 3:30pm
Cognitive Science Building, room 003


"Modeling the relation of knowledge, perception, and memory"



Abstract:

In the REM approach to cognition, we perceive events by (selectively) 
interrogating our knowledge, using physical cues and current context as 
probes. Information is extracted from knowledge and added back to our event 
coding in short-term memory. The short-term code is then stored as an 
incomplete and error prone episodic memory trace, and is also 
probabilistically added back to our knowledge. We retrieve from memory by 
probing with such short-term codes (including context, physical and 
semantic cues), activating traces that are most similar (assessed by a 
Bayesian calculation). This system has proved successful at explaining many 
results of episodic memory studies, and a good range of results from 
priming studies.

But how does knowledge form in the first place? Such a question led us to 
re-examine the simplistic way we have represented knowledge, as a vector of 
separate features values. I will describe a greatly enriched 
representational system, one that will form the next generation of my 
cognitive models. The system will be used to explain how knowledge 
bootstraps itself into existence, and will allow us to predict the critical 
role of coding strategies in memory and learning. Most important, it will 
allow a coherent understanding of the linkage of knowledge, perception, and 
memory. This research is presently in early stages of development, but I 
will try to motivate the theoretical extensions, and describe some tasks 
for which the richer representations provide an account.


Information about Dr. Shiffrin is available on his web page: 
http://www.indiana.edu/~psych/faculty/shiffrin.html

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