ABSTRACT
A general state-space model of prototype learning was formulated in terms of a set of Internal states and nonlinear Input-output mappings. The general model includes several previous models as special cases such as Hintzman's (1986) multiple trace model, Metcalf's (1982) holographic model, and two parallel distributive memory models (Knapp & Anderson, 1984; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1985). Two basic properties common to the three models were defined in terms of this general model—additivity and time Invariance. An experiment was conducted to test the basic properties using random spectral patterns as stimuli allowing possible nonlinear input and output distortions. Especially, ordinal tests of additivity were performed with few assumptions about internal features that subjects may use to encode the stimulus information. The results support additivity but time-invariance was clearly violated. Implications of these findings for models of the human memory system are discussed.
