Learning with Memory Embeddings

Abstract: Embedding learning, a.k.a. representation learning, has been shown to be able to model large-scale semantic knowledge graphs. A key concept is a mapping of the knowledge graph to a tensor representation whose entries are predicted by models using latent representations of generalized entities. Latent variable models are well suited to deal with the high dimensionality and sparsity of typical knowledge graphs. In recent publications the embedding models were extended to also consider time evolutions, time patterns and subsymbolic representations. In this paper we map embedding models, which were developed purely as solutions to technical problems for modelling temporal knowledge graphs, to various cognitive memory functions, in particular to semantic and concept memory, episodic memory, sensory memory, short-term memory, and working memory. We discuss learning, query answering, the path from sensory input to semantic decoding, and the relationship between episodic memory and semantic memory. We introduce a number of hypotheses on human memory that can be derived from the developed mathematical models.