Episodic Memory

A record that something happened at a time: Priya changed jobs in December, the deploy failed on Tuesday. Its truth is anchored to a moment, so it never becomes stale — it becomes past.

Why it matters in a memory layer

Episodes are the raw material everything else is derived from, and the only memory type that is safe to keep forever: a dated event does not stop being true. Their weakness is retrieval. "I'm leaving Northwind, starting at Calico" is an episode; "where do I work" asks for a state, and the two share almost no surface form. Systems that store only episodes recall them poorly, which is why promotion to semantic memory exists.

Connections

Taught in: The Taxonomy That Actually Routes

Used in: Designing the Memory Record · Supersede, Never Destroy · The Typed Memory Model

Do not confuse with: Semantic Memory