storage and the associated risk of catastrophic inter-
ference when this capacity is exceeded or when too
close prototypes are stored (Graham and Willshaw,
1997; Knoblauch et al., 2010). The best solution to
this problem is to require a sparse coding, which in-
trinsically also limits the maximum number of stored
prototypes. An associated strategy is to orthogonal-
ize the inputs and project their encoding in higher di-
mensions, which results in larger weight matrices to
manipulate (McNaughton and Nadel, 1990).
Models of associative memory have also been
studied for their complementarity with classical neu-
ral models of pattern matching like the multilayer per-
ceptron and for the deep cognitive anchoring of this
complementarity. Indeed, it was proposed 20 years
ago (McClelland et al., 1995) that the brain exploits
complementary learning systems, with a slow and
procedural learning in the cortex, able to extract struc-
tures and regularities in the data and to generalize,
compared with a quick learning of novel information
in the hippocampus.
In a recent work, we have proposed a refinement
of hippocampal model (Kassab and Alexandre, 2015),
inspired from recent biological data (Samura et al.,
2008). These data report heterogeneities in the hip-
pocampal structure that might support the coexis-
tence of autoassociative and heteroassociative mem-
ories in this region. Specifically, the hippocam-
pus is a neuronal structure known to be involved in
episodic memory (Tulving, 1972), corresponding to
the storage of specific episodes including their con-
text and their emotional or motivational significance.
For example, the hippocampus in involved in contex-
tual learning of pavlovian conditioning (Carrere and
Alexandre, 2015), linking neutral stimuli and their
context to biologically significant events (reward and
punishment). Though primarily oriented toward bio-
logical modeling, we have also explained in (Kassab
and Alexandre, 2015) the interest of such a segre-
gation from an information processing point of view
(cf. the concluding section for a summary). In ad-
dition, we have also postulated an additional mecha-
nism for the association of autoassociative memories,
that might result in a more robust system, particularly
more resistant to interference. The goal of this paper
is to evaluate more precisely the performances of this
mechanism from an information processing point of
view.
In the next section, we will present this model
together with its formalism based on the associative
memory initially proposed by Willshaw (Willshaw
et al., 1969). Then we will report the experiments
that were conducted to evaluate its resistance to inter-
ference and the associated results. We will conclude
by explaining the interest of such a mechanism both in
neuroscience and in information processing domains.
2 MULTIPLE
ASSOCIATIVE-MEMORY
MODEL OF THE
HIPPOCAMPUS
Our hippocampal model is made up of two autoas-
sociative networks that are heteroassociatively linked
through a layer of intermediate cells (Figure 1). The
goal of this model is to store and recall specific
episodes including a perceptual part (coming from the
perception of the outer world: exteroception) and an
emotional part (coming from the perception of inter-
nal cues of different valences related to pain and plea-
sure: interoception).
The two autoassociative networks considered in
the model receive and store independently these two
types of input patterns, a
(e)
and a
(i)
. The layer of in-
termediate cells is organized into a small number of
ordered groups of valence cells that receive valence-
related information from the same interoceptive path-
ways as the interoceptive autoassociative network.
The cells in the first group can be directly activated
by interoceptive inputs to the model and can therefore
be thought of as the primary valence cells. Interocep-
tive inputs on the cells in the other groups, which are
termed associated cells, are conditional, that is, they
can not evoke postsynaptic activity within associated
cells unless a concomitant signal, m
k
, related to the
activity pattern of a precedent group is applied.
The valence cells belonging to the same group
of intermediate cells are not interconnected but in-
hibitory connections, I
i j
, exist between cells belong-
ing to different groups. The inhibitory connections
are not plastic. They are prewired such that an in-
hibitory connection from cell i to cell j exists (I
i j
=
1) if the two cells belong respectively to different
groups, k and l, and l precedes k (l < k). Thus, each
group of associated cells, once activated, silences ex-
citable cells in its preceding groups including the pri-
mary group of valence cells. This means that at most
valence cells in one group can be active at a time.
The formation of extero-interoceptive associa-
tions is done at the level of heteroassociative links,
w
(e−v)
i j
, between the exteroceptive autoassociative net-
work and the groups of intermediate valence cells.
These latter provide direct excitatory input to the inte-
roceptive autoassociative network through non-plastic
connections, w
(v−i)
i j
. These connections are prewired
only between valence cells that are sensitive to the
NCTA 2015 - 7th International Conference on Neural Computation Theory and Applications
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