Graceful forgetting: Memory as a process
Alain de Cheveign\'e

TL;DR
This paper proposes a rational framework for understanding how the brain manages unbounded sensory input within limited memory capacity through summarization and compression at multiple time scales.
Contribution
It introduces a novel framework describing memory as a process of summarization and compression, integrating empirical and theoretical insights into memory function.
Findings
Memory is stored as statistic-like representations.
Summarization occurs rapidly for sensory input and more deliberatively for abstract traces.
Memory curation is metabolically demanding.
Abstract
A rational framework is proposed to explain how we accommodate unbounded sensory input within bounded memory. According to this framework, memory is stored as a statistic-like representation that is repeatedly summarized and compressed to make room for new input. Summarization of sensory input must be rapid; that of abstract trace might be slower and more deliberative, drawing on elaborative processes some of which might occasionally reach consciousness (as in mind-wandering). Short-term sensory traces are summarized as simple statistics organized into structures such as a time series, graph or dictionary, and longer-term abstract traces as more complex statistic-like structures. Summarization at multiple time scales requires an intensive process of memory curation which might account for the high metabolic consumption of the brain at rest. Summarization may be guided by heuristics to…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEmbodied and Extended Cognition · Action Observation and Synchronization · Motor Control and Adaptation
