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Latent Space Exploration and Functionalization of a Gated Working Memory Model Using Conceptors

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Abstract

Working memory is the ability to maintain and manipulate information. We introduce a method based on conceptors that allows us to manipulate information stored in the dynamics (latent space) of a gated working memory model. This latter model is based on a reservoir: a random recurrent network with trainable readouts. It is trained to hold a value in memory given an input stream when a gate signal is on and to maintain this information when the gate is off. The memorized information results in complex dynamics inside the reservoir that can be faithfully captured by a conceptor. Such conceptors allow us to explicitly manipulate this information in order to perform various, but not arbitrary, operations. In this work, we show (1) how working memory can be stabilized or discretized using such conceptors, (2) how such conceptors can be linearly combined to form new memories, and (3) how these conceptors can be extended to a functional role. These preliminary results suggest that conceptors can be used to manipulate the latent space of the working memory even though several results we introduce are not as intuitive as one would expect.

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  1. Offline with ridge regression

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, Talence, France

    Anthony Strock, Nicolas P. Rougier & Xavier Hinaut

  2. LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS UMR 5800, Talence, France

    Anthony Strock, Nicolas P. Rougier & Xavier Hinaut

  3. IMN, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS UMR 5293, Bordeaux, France

    Anthony Strock, Nicolas P. Rougier & Xavier Hinaut

Authors
  1. Anthony Strock
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  2. Nicolas P. Rougier
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  3. Xavier Hinaut
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Correspondence to Xavier Hinaut.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Nicolas P. Rougier and Xavier Hinaut contributed equally to this work.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Trends in Reservoir Computing

Guest Editors: Claudio Gallicchio, Alessio Micheli, Simone Scardapane, Miguel C. Soriano

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Strock, A., Rougier, N.P. & Hinaut, X. Latent Space Exploration and Functionalization of a Gated Working Memory Model Using Conceptors. Cogn Comput 15, 1485–1496 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-020-09797-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-020-09797-3

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