Batch mode in nature?

[Gregg Oden]

Steve Potter asks
>  I cant think of any biological examples of batch learning, in which
>  sensory data are saved until a certain number of them can be somehow
>  averaged together and conclusions made and remembered. Any ideas?

If by 'sensory data' you mean the most peripheral, unanalyzed input
representations, then probably not.  Otherwise, yes: it has been a
long-term recurring theme in the psychological literature on the
development of concepts that exemplars are remembered with a great
deal of specific detail until a sufficient corpus of them have been
acquired to support the abstraction of a general concept.
(Subsequently, idiosyncratic details may be lost/suppressed through
assimilation to the encompassing category.)  This notion is supported
by the intuitive experience of reflective recognition of regularities;
i. e., insight.  In recent years, it has also gained empirical support
from experimental work, most notably by Lee Brooks and his colleagues.

Some of this was briefly discussed in my chapter in the Annual Review
of Psychology, 1987.  (See also Oden & Lopes, "On the internal structure
of fuzzy subjective categories" in Recent Developments in Fuzzy Set and
Possibility Theory, R. Yager, ed., 1982.)

Gregg Oden
Psychology & Computer Science
U. of Iowa