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From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Cross-talk, memory limitations
Message-ID: <9093@uwm.edu>
Date: 23 Jan 91 03:57:31 GMT
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Lines: 31


   What would happen if the brain began to run out of memory?  I tried
imagining that a while ago.  Basically what I saw was this.

   We use a sparse coding to represent concepts.  If that coding becomes too
crowded, then you'll progressively see more and more interference between
related concepts any time you tried to "recall" any specific concept.  In a
word: cross-talk.

   It happened to me a couple times recently, though not necessarily because my
brain's running out of space, nor because of any memory deficit (I have very
strong associative memory capibility).  But the experience is real interesting.

   The first time I was trying to bring up a word describing a child who was
well ahead of development typical of his or her age ... and with a slightly
sexual connotation.  The word is "precocious", but I kept coming up with
"prodigious".

   The second time, more recently, I was trying to come up with a word
describing an event that defines future history, or an event which enables
similar future events to happen.  The word here is "precedent", but I kept
coming up with "prerequisite".

   What struck me the second time this happened was the similarity of the
two words (precocious and precedent) which I had momentary difficulty
recalling...

   What was interesting about both situations was that they happened long
enough that I could actually sit back any analyse the situation in progress.
What kept happending was that the wqord in question would actively block
out the other word and sometimes even the underlying concept itself.