Minerva 2 for speech and language tasks

Most artificial neural networks do not directly incorporate a memory of previous experiences, instead using training data to parameterise a model, and then discarding the training data prior to inference. While some recent models have included a memory, this has typically been added to an already highly parameterised model. An alternative option is to use a purely memory-based model, and then add parameters. This has been shown to work for Minerva 2, a simple, non-parametric, memory-based model which has been widely used in the field of human psychology. We revisit the use of Minerva 2 for speech and language tasks, drawing comparisons between Minerva 2 and other architectures, and showing that an iterative process that Minerva 2 uses for inference is a close relative of deep equilibrium models. We assess parameterised models based on Minerva 2, including a sequence model inspired by Minerva 2’s similarity to the transformer architecture, which shows promising results.