Episodic Meta-RL
As in episodic deep RL, the episodic memory catalogues a set of past events, which can be queried based on the current context.
rather than linking contexts with value estimates, episodic meta-RL links them with stored activity patterns from the recurrent network's internal or hidden units.
On the first encounter with a new task, the system benefits from the rapidity of meta-RL; on the second and later encounters, it benefits from the one-shot learning ability conferred by episodic control.
the reinstatement mechanism involved in episodic meta-RL was directly inspired by neuroscience data indicating that episodic memory circuits can serve to reinstate patterns of activation in cerebral cortex, including areas supporting working memory (see 40).