Declarative Memory

There are many memory types. Some memories are of fact-like beliefs, such as that whales are mammals, or that Moskow is the Capital of Russia. These kinds of memories are fact-like (propositional), and we can often retrieve them and be consciously aware of them. Other kinds of memory might be associations between concepts (associative memories), or memories of how to do things (procedural memory).

In ACT-R, the declarative memory is distinct from the procedural memory (which is the set of productions.)

The ACT-R agent requests a memory from the declarative memory store, and retrieved memories go into the declarative memory buffer.

For example, an agent might want to recall the capital of Russia. They might submit a request to declarative memory that looks like this:

Country: Russia Capital: ?

If the agent knows that Moskow is the capital of Russia, then the full "chunk" will be put in declarative memory.

Country: Russia Capital: Moskow

A request production puts a copy of the chunk in the declarative memory buffer, and another production will be activated in order to use it for anything.