Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

The CEL model of learning and memory (Components of Episodic Learning) [Granger 1982, 1983a, 1983b] provides a process model of certain aspects of learning and memory in animals and humans. The model consists of a set of asynchronous and semi-independent functional operators that collectively create and modify memory traces as a result of experience. The model conforms to relevant results in the learning literature of psychology and neurobiology. There are two goals to this work: one is to create a set of working learning systems that will improve their performance on the basis of experience, and the other is to compare these systems' performance with that of living systems, as a step towards the eventual comparative characterizations of different learning systems.

Parts of the model have been implemented in the CEL-0 program, which operates in a 'Maze-World' simulated maze environment. The program exhibits simple exploratory behavior that leads to the acquisition of predictive and discriminatory schemata. A number of interesting theoretical predictions have arisen in part from observation of the operation of the program, some of which are currently being tested in neurobiological experiments. In particular, some neurobiological evidence for the existence of multiple, seperable memory systems in humans and animals is interpreted in terms of the model, and some new experiments are suggested arising from the model's predictions.