Using old memories to store new ones

This paper describes a connectionist model of the interaction between long and short term memory. The proposed model addresses both issues of old memory utilization and novel memory consolidation. It comprises two different auto-associator network components; one for short term memory (STM) and one for long term memory (LTM). The STM network component uses a Hebbian type fast learning algorithm, while the LTM component uses the relatively slow mean field theory algorithm (Peterson and Hartman 1989).