Memory in Computer Science

Computer science often uses memory to mean addressable storage, state, persistence, caching, or retrieval infrastructure. This meaning is precise, but it is narrower than psychological or biological memory.

Core terms: state, cache, persistence, vector database, knowledge graph, information retrieval, RAG, retrieval, associative memory.

Terms that change meaning across fields: memory, state, persistence, retrieval, context, trace.

Return to the Canonical Memory Glossary.