An architecture of narrative memory

AbstractNarrative is ubiquitous. According to some models, this is due to the hypothesis that narrative is not only a successful way of communication, but a specific way of structuring knowledge. While most cognitive architectures acknowledge the importance of narrative, they usually do so from a functional point of view and not as a fundamental way of storing material in memory. The presented approach takes one step further towards the inclusion of narrative-aware structures in general cognitive architectures. In particular, the presented architecture studies how episodic memory and procedures in semantic memory can be redefined in terms of narrative structures. A formal definition of narrative for cognition and its constituents are presented, and the functions that an implementation of the architecture needs are described. The relative merits and the potential benefits with regard to general cognitive architectures are discussed and exemplified