mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Model-Free Episodic Control

arXiv 1606.04460 ↗First posted 14 Jun 2016stat.ML cs.LG q-bio.NCcited by 100

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Abstract (arXiv)

State of the art deep reinforcement learning algorithms take many millions of interactions to attain human-level performance. Humans, on the other hand, can very quickly exploit highly rewarding nuances of an environment upon first discovery. In the brain, such rapid learning is thought to depend on the hippocampus and its capacity for episodic memory. Here we investigate whether a simple model of hippocampal episodic control can learn to solve difficult sequential decision-making tasks. We demonstrate that it not only attains a highly rewarding strategy significantly faster than state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning algorithms, but also achieves a higher overall reward on some of the more challenging domains.

Key facts. Cited by 100 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 14 Jun 2016.

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Citing papers per year: 2018: 2; 2019: 1; 2020: 2; 2021: 18; 2022: 15; 2023: 12; 2024: 18; 2025: 14; 2026: 18.

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  1. 2023Cognitive Architectures for Language Agentscited by 422
  2. 2022Offline Reinforcement Learning via High-Fidelity Generative Behavior Modelingcited by 177
  3. 2018Self-Imitation Learningcited by 135
  4. 2021Replay in Deep Learning: Current Approaches and Missing Biological Elementscited by 71
  5. 2024Human-inspired Episodic Memory for Infinite Context LLMscited by 62
  6. 2022Retrieval-Augmented Reinforcement Learningcited by 53
  7. 2024Larimar: Large Language Models with Episodic Memory Controlcited by 53
  8. 2021Episodic Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning with Curiosity-Driven Explorationcited by 49
  9. 2021Offline Reinforcement Learning with Value-based Episodic Memorycited by 36
  10. 2021Iterative Bounding MDPs: Learning Interpretable Policies via Non-Interpretable Methodscited by 31
  11. 2021Rank the Episodes: A Simple Approach for Exploration in Procedurally-Generated Environmentscited by 28
  12. 2018Generative Adversarial Self-Imitation Learningcited by 25
38 more
  1. 2022Large-Scale Retrieval for Reinforcement Learningcited by 24
  2. 2021Generalizable Episodic Memory for Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 22
  3. 2024Retrieval-Augmented Decision Transformer: External Memory for In-context RLcited by 20
  4. 2024Natural Language Reinforcement Learningcited by 17
  5. 2020DeepAveragers: Offline Reinforcement Learning by Solving Derived Non-Parametric MDPscited by 16
  6. 2022On the link between conscious function and general intelligence in humans and machinescited by 15
  7. 2023ALLURE: Auditing and Improving LLM-based Evaluation of Text using Iterative In-Context-Learningcited by 15
  8. 2025Episodic Novelty Through Temporal Distancecited by 15
  9. 2021Model-Based Episodic Memory Induces Dynamic Hybrid Controlscited by 14
  10. 2025R2D2: Remembering, Replaying and Dynamic Decision Making with a Reflective Agentic Memorycited by 14
  11. 2020Self-Imitation Learning via Generalized Lower Bound Q-learningcited by 13
  12. 2021Neuro-algorithmic Policies enable Fast Combinatorial Generalizationcited by 11
  13. 2025Episodic memory in AI agents poses risks that should be studied and mitigatedcited by 11
  14. 2025Evolution and The Knightian Blindspot of Machine Learningcited by 11
  15. 2021Theoretically Principled Deep RL Acceleration via Nearest Neighbor Function Approximationcited by 10
  16. 2022BATS: Best Action Trajectory Stitchingcited by 9
  17. 2023Accountability in Offline Reinforcement Learning: Explaining Decisions with a Corpus of Examplescited by 9
  18. 2024Stable Hadamard Memory: Revitalizing Memory-Augmented Agents for Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
  19. 2021Solving Continuous Control with Episodic Memorycited by 7
  20. 2023Neural Episodic Control with State Abstractioncited by 7
  21. 2023DEIR: Efficient and Robust Exploration through Discriminative-Model-Based Episodic Intrinsic Rewardscited by 7
  22. 2025WebSight: A Vision-First Architecture for Robust Web Agentscited by 7
  23. 2019Imitation Learning from Pixel-Level Demonstrations by HashRewardcited by 6
  24. 2024Continual Offline Reinforcement Learning via Diffusion-based Dual Generative Replaycited by 6
  25. 2021Episodic Policy Gradient Trainingcited by 5
  26. 2022Generalization Properties of Retrieval-based Modelscited by 5
  27. 2024Temporal Knowledge-Graph Memory in a Partially Observable Environmentcited by 5
  28. 2025Memento 2: Learning by Stateful Reflective Memorycited by 5
  29. 2026Self-Evolving World Models for LLM Agent Planningcited by 5
  30. 2021Memory and attention in deep learningcited by 4
  31. 2021On the Estimation Bias in Double Q-Learningcited by 4
  32. 2022Learning to Constrain Policy Optimization with Virtual Trust Regioncited by 4
  33. 2022Contrastive Retrospection: honing in on critical steps for rapid learning and generalization in RLcited by 4
  34. 2024Efficient Episodic Memory Utilization of Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  35. 2024Large Language Models Prompting With Episodic Memorycited by 4
  36. 2024Natural Language Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  37. 2026MemQ: Integrating Q-Learning into Self-Evolving Memory Agents over Provenance DAGscited by 4
  38. 2021Learning Multi-Objective Curricula for Robotic Policy Learningcited by 3

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