Abstract

interaction, artificial intelligence. People make use of hidden external information, first recalling that it exists and then finding it. This dissertation investigates the memory phenomena involved in recalling that external information exists. We present data in which a programmer navigates to hidden features in a real-world task environment. We then present a model that accounts for this navigation by encoding and using simple episodic memories for having seen a feature. The model inherits constraints from its underlying cognitive architecture, which specify that learning is passive and pervasive, and that it creates simple memories that depend on the feature itself being present as a cue. The nature of these memories requires the model to recall features to its mind’s eye as cues in order to retrieve them. This retrieval process requires domain knowledge: familiarity with features in order to imagine them, and an idea of when it would be useful to recall having seen them. Recalling that a hidden feature exists prompts the model to scroll to that feature. Thus the model’s access to external information is a function of passively-encoded episodic memories, and retrieval of these memories using knowledge. As a claim applied to people, this appears to overlap with a recently-

Citations