The Trace Feature Map is a self-organizing map where lateral connections between units are used to encode a memory trace: the map remembers that at some point, an input was received that was mapped at a particular location on the map. The Trace Map model was originally developed as the episodic memory component for the DISCERN story processing system, and it exhibits plausible cognitive behavior for this task. More recent and more unique traces are easier to recall, and the memory capacity degrades gradually when overloaded.