ABSTRACT
The original motivation behind this research was to jointly address the problems of how long-term memory is used in understanding and how long-term memory is built up through understanding. Numerous researchers in psychology and artificial intelligence have shown that understanding and memory cannot be considered separately (Anderson & Bower, 1973; Lebowitz, 1980; Norman & Rumelhart, 1975; Quillian, 1968; Rieger, 1975a; Schank, 1980; Schank & Abel-son, 1977). While all these researchers agree that memory is an important part of understanding, they do not agree on its form and organization. Quillian, Anderson, and Bower emphasize a semantic memory organization based on inheritance, Rieger emphasizes organization of inferences around primitives, and the others emphasize more complex episodic organizations.
