The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the following talk. Please note that this is an online event only, starting from 10 AM.

 

Speaker: Andrew Saxe, Gatsby Unit, UCL

Time: 10 AM, 17th of January, Wednesday 

Title: Organizing memories for generalization in complementary learning systems

Abstract: Memorization and generalization are complementary cognitive processes that jointly promote adaptive behavior. For example, animals should memorize safe routes to specific water sources and generalize from these memories to discover environmental features that predict new ones. These functions depend on systems consolidation mechanisms that construct neocortical memory traces from hippocampal precursors, but why systems consolidation only applies to a subset of hippocampal memories is unclear. Here we introduce a new neural network formalization of systems consolidation that reveals an overlooked tension—unregulated neocortical memory transfer can cause overfitting and harm generalization in an unpredictable world. We resolve this tension by postulating that memories only consolidate when it aids generalization. This framework accounts for partial hippocampal–cortical memory transfer and provides a normative principle for reconceptualizing numerous observations in the field. Generalization-optimized systems consolidation thus provides new insight into how adaptive behavior benefits from complementary learning systems specialized for memorization and generalization.

 

Please, be informed that video/photo recording might take place at the event and the edited version of the video material might be published to communicate or promote CEU's activities. Please, find our Privacy Notice here.

 

Ildikó Varga

From: Ildiko Zsoka Varga
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2024 12:45 PM
To: 'talks@cogsci.ceu.edu (talks@cogsci.ceu.edu)' <talks@cogsci.ceu.edu>
Subject: CCC Colloquium - Andrew Saxe - Wednesday, 17 January

Dear All, 

 

The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the following online talk.

 

Speaker: Andrew Saxe, Gatsby Unit, UCL

Time: 10am, 17th of January, Wednesday 

Title: Organizing memories for generalization in complementary learning systems

Abstract: Memorization and generalization are complementary cognitive processes that jointly promote adaptive behavior. For example, animals should memorize safe routes to specific water sources and generalize from these memories to discover environmental features that predict new ones. These functions depend on systems consolidation mechanisms that construct neocortical memory traces from hippocampal precursors, but why systems consolidation only applies to a subset of hippocampal memories is unclear. Here we introduce a new neural network formalization of systems consolidation that reveals an overlooked tension—unregulated neocortical memory transfer can cause overfitting and harm generalization in an unpredictable world. We resolve this tension by postulating that memories only consolidate when it aids generalization. This framework accounts for partial hippocampal–cortical memory transfer and provides a normative principle for reconceptualizing numerous observations in the field. Generalization-optimized systems consolidation thus provides new insight into how adaptive behavior benefits from complementary learning systems specialized for memorization and generalization.

 

Please, be informed that video/photo recording might take place at the event and the edited version of the video material might be published to communicate or promote CEU's activities. Please, find our Privacy Notice here.