Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

recent years, much research has been aimed at the study of episodic reminding and its relationship to the process of understanding in both man and machines. Because of the ill defined nature of the functionality of episodic remindings in the understanding process, however, little progress has been made in uncovering the nature of the memory organization that supports these remindings or how they are used to help in understanding. This paper will present a functional view of episodic reminding from the perspective of planning rather than understanding. Because of the clearer functionality of planning, a more straightforward view of the use of these remindings and the memory organization that supports them is possible. This paper will discuss three situations in which episodic memories can be used in planning: problem anticipation, plan construction and plan repair. The memory organization that each of these uses implies will also be discussed. This view of memory will be presented in terms of a case-based planner, CHEF, which makes extensive use of episodic remindings in constructing new plans.