Temporal Chunking Enhances Recognition of Implicit Sequential Patterns

Abstract: In this pilot study, we propose a neuro-inspired approach that compresses temporal sequences into context-tagged chunks, where each tag represents a recurring structural unit or``community'' in the sequence. These tags are generated during an offline sleep phase and serve as compact references to past experience, allowing the learner to incorporate information beyond its immediate input range. We evaluate this idea in a controlled synthetic environment designed to reveal the limitations of traditional neural network based sequence learners, such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs), when facing temporal patterns on multiple timescales. We evaluate this idea in a controlled synthetic environment designed to reveal the limitations of traditional neural network based sequence learners, such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs), when facing temporal patterns on multiple timescales. Our results, while preliminary, suggest that temporal chunking can significantly enhance learning efficiency under resource constrained settings. A small-scale human pilot study using a Serial Reaction Time Task further motivates the idea of structural abstraction. Although limited to synthetic tasks, this work serves as an early proof-of-concept, with initial evidence that learned context tags can transfer across related task, offering potential for future applications in transfer learning.