On a random model of forgetting

Abstract: Georgiou, Katkov and Tsodyks considered the following random process. Let

x_{1}, x_{2}, l d o t s

be an infinite sequence of independent, identically distributed, uniform random points in

[0, 1]

. Starting with

S = 0

, the elements

x_{k}

join

S

one by one, in order. When an entering element is larger than the current minimum element of

S

, this minimum leaves

S

. Let

S (1, n)

denote the content of

S

after the first

n

elements

x_{k}

join. Simulations suggest that the size

| S (1, n) |

of

S

at time

n

is typically close to

n / e

. Here we first give a rigorous proof that this is indeed the case, and that in fact the symmetric difference of

S (1, n)

and the set

x_{k} g e 1 - 1 / e : 1 l e q k l e q n

is of size at most

i l d e O (s q r t n)

with high probability. Our main result is a more accurate description of the process implying, in particular, that as

n

tends to infinity

converges to a normal random variable with variance

3 e^{- 2} - e^{- 1}

.

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