Priorkennis

Priorkennis refers to knowledge an individual already possesses before engaging with a new task, problem, or source of information. It includes explicit facts and rules as well as tacit understanding gained from experience. Priorkennis can facilitate or hinder learning, depending on its accuracy and how it interacts with new evidence.

In education and psychology, priorkennis influences comprehension and learning outcomes. Instructors assess students' priorkennis to tailor instruction, activate relevant concepts, and anticipate misconceptions. Diagnostic tests, concept inventories, and pre-briefs are common tools. However, incorrect priorkennis can obstruct new learning and reinforce false beliefs.

In perception and decision making, priorkennis translates into prior expectations that shape interpretation. Some theories model the brain as combining priors with new input to form beliefs, updating these as evidence accumulates. Strong priors can speed processing but may also bias judgments if they diverge from reality.

In statistics and data science, priorkennis is formalized as prior information or prior distributions in Bayesian inference. Priors express beliefs about parameters before observing data and are updated with evidence to yield posteriors. The choice of priors affects results, especially with limited data; justification and sensitivity analyses are recommended.