Memory Interference

🔀 Interference — Deduplication

Package: com.spectrayan.spector.memory.interference

Biological Analog: Proactive interference occurs when old memories interfere with new learning. If you move to a new city, your old address "interferes" when you try to recall the new one. The brain resolves this by strengthening the newer trace and weakening the old one.

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The Problem

Without deduplication, an agent remembering the same fact repeatedly creates redundant entries:

memory[0]: "User prefers dark mode"     importance=0.8
memory[1]: "User prefers dark mode"     importance=0.7
memory[2]: "The user likes dark mode"   importance=0.9  ← near-duplicate

These compete during recall, waste storage, and dilute the Hebbian co-activation signal.

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SemanticDeduplicator

The SemanticDeduplicator detects near-duplicates by computing L2 distance between the new memory's vector and existing memories. When a match is found within a configurable threshold, it merges rather than creating a new record:

public final class SemanticDeduplicator {

    /**
     * Checks if a near-duplicate exists and merges if found.
     * 
     * Merge strategy:
     * - importance = max(existing, new)
     * - synapticTags = existing | new  (OR-merge: union of Bloom filters)
     * - timestamp = most recent
     * - recallCount preserved from existing
     */
    public Optional<Long> findAndMerge(MemorySegment segment, int recordCount,
                                        CognitiveRecordLayout layout,
                                        float[] newVector, CognitiveHeader newHeader,
                                        float threshold) {
        // Scan for near-duplicate within L2 threshold
        // If found: merge headers via OR on tags, max on importance
        // Return offset of merged record (or empty if no duplicate)
    }
}

Merge rules:

Field	Strategy	Rationale
importance	max(existing, new)	Keep the highest importance signal
synapticTags	existing | new	Union of Bloom filters — broader context
timestamp	Most recent	Memory is "refreshed"
recallCount	Preserved	Reconsolidation history maintained
valence	From newer	Most recent emotional assessment

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Integration

Deduplication runs during the ingestion pipeline after embedding but before writing. If a merge occurs, no new record is created — the existing record is updated in-place.

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Next Steps

• :material-clock: Prospective — Future Intents — time-triggered reminders
• :material-brain: Architecture — where deduplication fits in the pipeline