Sequential Learning in the Dense Associative Memory

TL;DR

This paper reviews and benchmarks the Dense Associative Memory (DAM), a modern Hopfield network, analyzing its sequential learning capabilities and behaviors, and comparing it to biological neural networks and prior models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of sequential learning in associative memories, performs foundational benchmarks on DAM, and analyzes its behavior with various learning techniques.

Findings

DAM demonstrates effective sequential learning with multiple methods.

Transitions in DAM behavior reveal new insights into associative memory dynamics.

DAM's properties differ from biological neural networks, affecting its utility for biological studies.

Abstract

Sequential learning involves learning tasks in a sequence, and proves challenging for most neural networks. Biological neural networks regularly conquer the sequential learning challenge and are even capable of transferring knowledge both forward and backwards between tasks. Artificial neural networks often totally fail to transfer performance between tasks, and regularly suffer from degraded performance or catastrophic forgetting on previous tasks. Models of associative memory have been used to investigate the discrepancy between biological and artificial neural networks due to their biological ties and inspirations, of which the Hopfield network is the most studied model. The Dense Associative Memory (DAM), or modern Hopfield network, generalizes the Hopfield network, allowing for greater capacities and prototype learning behaviors, while still retaining the associative memory structure. We give a substantial review of the sequential learning space with particular respect to the Hopfield network and associative memories. We perform foundational benchmarks of sequential learning in the DAM using various sequential learning techniques, and analyze the results of the sequential learning to demonstrate previously unseen transitions in the behavior of the DAM. This paper also discusses the departure from biological plausibility that may affect the utility of the DAM as a tool for studying biological neural networks. We present our findings, including the effectiveness of a range of state-of-the-art sequential learning methods when applied to the DAM, and use these methods to further the understanding of DAM properties and behaviors.