arXiv AI

Procedural Memory Under Change: Reuse and Interference in Controlled Web Tasks

The paper investigates how procedural memory behaves when its stored routines become mismatched with changing interfaces. Using a BrowserGym TimeWarp case and controlled synthetic shopping tasks, the authors found that procedural memory can be mismatched without causing behavioral disruption, as none of the predefined interference signatures appeared. The study highlights a specific region of non‑interference but leaves open which conditions would turn mismatches into observable errors.

arXiv AI
Oct 16

PREPING: Zero-Task Agent Memory Construction via Self-Practice

PREPING introduces a proposer-guided framework for constructing agent memory before encountering target tasks, using self-generated synthetic practice. The method employs a proposer memory to shape synthetic tasks, a solver to execute them, and a validator to filter useful trajectories, thereby avoiding redundancy and infeasibility. Experiments on AppWorld, BFCL v3, and MCP-Universe demonstrate that PREPING outperforms a no-memory baseline and rivals playbook-based approaches while reducing deployment costs by 2.99× and 2.23× respectively.

By Yumin Choi, Sangwoo Park, Minki Kang, Jinheon Baek, Sung Ju Hwang
arXiv AI
Sep 28

Probing Stability-Plasticity Tradeoffs in Agent Memory through Cognitive Experimental Paradigms

The paper introduces MemProbe, a framework inspired by cognitive science to evaluate stability-plasticity tradeoffs in agent memory systems. It offers four experimental paradigms—interference, misinformation, consolidation strength, and reconsolidation window—to manipulate memory updates, preservation, and uncertainty. Using a 56-episode diagnostic suite, the authors evaluate six incremental memory systems, revealing that similar overall scores can mask distinct behavioral profiles in how memories are updated, preserved, attributed, and temporally organized.

By Jiaqi Ding, Guorong Wu
arXiv AI
Oct 21

More Memory, Worse Agents: Error Reproduction and Anti-Persistence in LLM Agents

The paper investigates how large language model (LLM) agents can improve performance by storing and reusing experience in external memory. It identifies a problem called error reproduction, where mistakes in stored abstractions propagate through cycles of abstraction, execution, and re-abstraction, leading to persistent errors. To mitigate this, the authors propose Anti-Persistence, a memory design that retains raw trajectories and outcomes but reconstructs task-specific guidance on demand, discarding it after use. Experiments across multiple benchmarks show that Anti-Persistence yields higher held‑out success rates and lower LLM‑call costs compared to other memory designs, supporting the idea of separating experience accumulation from abstraction persistence.

By Ruhan Wang, Kishan Panaganti, Dongruo Zhou
arXiv AI
Aug 19

On the Fragility of Self-Improving Agents: Variance, Task Order, and Underspecification

The paper re‑evaluates memory‑based self‑improving agents by adding multiple runs to measure variance and by randomizing task order. It finds that agent performance is noisy in complex, multi‑step environments and that improvement depends heavily on the sequence of tasks, revealing a hidden curriculum effect. The authors suggest that underspecification of tasks and environments contributes to this fragility and demonstrate that adding detailed rubrics and feedback can partially mitigate performance drops, though gaps remain.

By Qinyuan Ye, Yu Li, Yada Pruksachatkun, Jiaxin Zhang, Chien-Sheng Wu
arXiv AI
Aug 25

CONTRAMEM: Learning Self-Evolving Procedural Memory from Contrasting Multi-Model Trajectories

arXiv:2608.22533v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Autonomous computer-use agents are increasingly applied to long-horizon tasks requiring coordinated application calls, persistent state tracking, and v...

By Zheyuan Deng, Binghang Lu, Hanqi Feng, Shirley Huang, Dianzhuo Wang, Yuanda Xu, Zhiwei Zhang, Yige Sun, Changhong Mou, Runyu Zhang, Yuexing Hao, Barnabas Poczos, Xiaomin Li