  We propose a new self-organizing mechanism behind the emergence of memory in
which temporal sequences of stimuli are transformed into spatial activity
patterns. In particular, the memory emerges despite the absence of temporal
correlations in the stimuli. This suggests that neural systems may prepare a
spatial structure for processing information before the information itself is
available. A simple model illustrating the mechanism is presented based on
three principles: (1) Competition between neural units, 2) Hebbian plasticity,
and (3) recurrent connections.
