The simulation of verbal learning behavior

• Authors: E. A. Feigenbaum
• Venue: IRE-AIEE-ACM '61 (Western) Papers presented at the May 9-11, 1961, western joint IRE-AIEE-ACM computer conference
• Year: 1961

An information processing model of elementary human symbolic learning is given a precise statement as a computer program, called Elementary Perceiver and Memorizer (EPAM). The program simulates the behavior of subjects in experiments involving the rote learning of nonsense syllables. A discrimination net which grows is the basis of EPAM's associative memory. Fundamental information processes include processes for discrimination, discrimination learning, memorization, association using cues, and response retrieval with cues. Many well-known phenomena of rote learning are to be found in EPAM's experimental behavior, including some rather complex forgetting phenomena. EPAM is programmed in Information Processing Language V. H. A. Simon has described some current research in the simulation of human higher mental processes and has discussed some of the techniques and problems which have emerged from this research. The purpose of this paper is to place these general issues in the context of a particular problem by describing in detail a simulation of elementary human symbolic learning processes. The information processing model of mental functions employed is realized by a computer program called Elementary Perceiver and Memorizer (EPAM). The EPAM program is the precise statement of an information processing theory of verbal learning that provides an alternative to other verbal learning theories which have been proposed. It is the result of an attempt to state quite precisely a parsimonious and plausible mechanism sufficient to account for the rote learning of nonsense syllables. The critical evaluation of EPAM must ultimately depend not upon the interest which it may have as a learning machine, but upon its ability to explain and predict the phenomena of verbal learning. I should like to preface my discussion of the simulation of verbal learning with some brief remarks about the class of information processing models of which EPAM is a member. a. These are models of mental processes, not brain hardware. They are psychological models of mental function. No physiological or neurological assumptions are made, nor is any attempt made to explain information processes in terms of more elementary neural processes. b. These models conceive of the brain as an information processor with sense organs as input channels, effector organs as output devices, and with internal programs for testing, comparing, analyzing, rearranging, and storing information. c. The central processing mechanism is assumed to be serial; i.e., capable of doing only one (or a very few) things at a time. d. These models use as a basic unit the information symbol; i.e., a pattern of bits which is assumed to be the brain's internal representation of environmental data. e. These models are essentially deterministic, not probabilistic. Random variables play no fundamental role in them.