# Associative Long Short-Term Memory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03032 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.03032/

## Key facts

- Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 Feb 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 37)

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- [Attention Approximates Sparse Distributed Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05498/) (2021)
- [Learning with Holographic Reduced Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02157/) (2021)
- [HDC-MiniROCKET: Explicit Time Encoding in Time Series Classification with Hyperdimensional Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.08055/) (2022)
- [Recasting Self-Attention with Holographic Reduced Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19534/) (2023)
- [Mechanistic evaluation of Transformers and state space models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15105/) (2025)
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- [Quaternion Factorization Machines: A Lightweight Solution to Intricate Feature Interaction Modelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.01716/) (2021)
- [CoNO: Complex Neural Operator for Continuous Dynamical Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02094/) (2023)
- [BCNN: Binary Complex Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10044/) (2021)
- [Co-domain Symmetry for Complex-Valued Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01525/) (2021)
- [CoNO: Complex Neural Operator for Continous Dynamical Physical Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02597/) (2024)
- [MITNet: GAN Enhanced Magnetic Induction Tomography Based on Complex CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07911/) (2021)
- [Entropic Associative Memory for Manuscript Symbols](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.08413/) (2022)
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- [Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Quantum Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13812/) (2023)
- [Linearithmic Clean-up for Vector-Symbolic Key-Value Memory with Kroneker Rotation Products](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15793/) (2025)
- [RVFL-X: A Novel Randomized Network Based on Complex Transformed Real-Valued Tabular Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.06278/) (2025)
- [Multi-label Learning with Random Circular Vectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05656/) (2024)
- [Associative Knowledge Graphs for Efficient Sequence Storage and Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14480/) (2024)
- [Transfer Learning for Temporal Link Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.10925/) (2025)
- [Lego Sketch: A Scalable Memory-augmented Neural Network for Sketching Data Streams](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19561/) (2025)
- [Neural Networks with Complex-Valued Weights Have No Spurious Local Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07287/) (2021)
- [Energy time series forecasting-Analytical and empirical assessment of conventional and machine learning models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10663/) (2021)
- [Spectral Complexity-scaled Generalization Bound of Complex-valued Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03467/) (2021)
- [A photonic chip-based machine learning approach for the prediction of molecular properties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02285/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We investigate a new method to augment recurrent neural networks with extra memory without increasing the number of network parameters. The system has an associative memory based on complex-valued vectors and is closely related to Holographic Reduced Representations and Long Short-Term Memory networks. Holographic Reduced Representations have limited capacity: as they store more information, each retrieval becomes noisier due to interference. Our system in contrast creates redundant copies of stored information, which enables retrieval with reduced noise. Experiments demonstrate faster learning on multiple memorization tasks.