Lecture 7

Declarative KnowledgeEnglish Study Program

FKIP – UNSRIJuly 2014

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• Declarative knowledge is the knowing of basic facts and the recall of stored information.

• It is the what, which means knowing what something is and what it is meant to do.

• When writing declarative knowledge we often use the words explain, describe, summarize, and list.

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• Declarative knowledge is obtained in the following way:– New knowledge is presented by some medium

and consumed by the individual.– The material presented is translated by the

individual into propositions (ideas).• Individuals then make relative connections within their

memories.– The individual then generates elaborations as new

connections stimulate the making of inferences.

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• Declarative knowledge is broken into three subtypes:– 1. Labels and names — Individuals mentally make a

connecting link between two elements. • This link could be prepositional or image based.

– 2. Facts and lists — A fact describes a relationship between or among concepts. • A list is a group of elements, which may or may not be

important.– 3. Organized discourse — Discourse involves the

comprehension of a thread of meaning that runs through an extensive body of information.

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• Declarative knowledge is often broken down into three cognitive activities:– 1. Linking new information to existing knowledge– 2. Organizing– 3. Elaborating

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1. Linking new information to existing knowledge

• To learn and recall new information individuals have to tie new knowledge to knowledge they already possess.

• By linking new information to existing knowledge, individuals make the information more meaningful.

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• To store this knowledge into long-term memory, an individual must make it meaningful.

• Incoming information will become meaningful when there is some prior knowledge that links to it.

• A result of linking is construction of meaning, which is at the heart of declarative knowledge.

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2. Organizing

• Putting new information into groups also helps in the learning of declarative knowledge.

• This placement of information also involves placing it into different areas of the memory.

• As information is received we actively organize it by grouping things together, separating one group from another, and subordinating and making relationships among groups.

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• Phone numbers are an example: the phone number 17025551212 is grouped and separated in our mind as 1 (702) 555–1212.

• Organization often adds meaning by placing new unfamiliar material into some existing order.

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3. Elaborating

• Making connections among the information being received as well as connecting new information to existing knowledge.

• Elaborating is a basic process by which links are made within information being received as well as for connecting new information to existing knowledge and structures.

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Declarative Knowledge Learning• The conditions needed to support declarative

knowledge learning depend on the instructional strategy tool being used,– Organization strategies, – classification frames, – concept mapping, – advance organizers, – metaphoric techniques, – rehearsal strategies, – mnemonics, and – Imagery.

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• Declarative knowledge is represented explicitly and symbolically and should be independent of the methods to perform inferences on it.

• The forms of declarative knowledge representations are predicate logic, production rules, semantic nets, and frames.

• They all have one thing in common: They do not contain control information about how and in which order to use the knowledge.

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• A declarative knowledge representation has the following advantages:– ■ High modularity and modifiability.– ■ Easy reusability.– ■ High-level reasoning, which is the possibility to

acquire knowledge automatically (learning) and use metaknowledge.

– ■ Introspective explanation.

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• A declarative knowledge representation has the following drawbacks:– ■ Limited descriptive vocabulary (shallow

knowledge)– ■ Low efficiency and performance

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Declarative Knowledge Representation

• An excellent way to represent declarative knowledge is to use concept maps.

• Concept maps are tools for organizing and representing knowledge.

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• Any description of the behavior of an individual or a system in a declarative programming language takes the form of a set of implications (inference).

• If one set of statements is true (the antecedents), then another set of statements is true (the consequents).

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• The antecedents describe in general terms the state in which the consequents are true.

• The consequents could describe new characteristics of the state, including the results of specific actions undertaken by individuals.

• In either event, the antecedent-consequent coupling describes one step or one set of parallel steps to be taken in a particular state.

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• It is usual for both antecedent and consequent statements to contain variables.

• The antecedent’s variables are unified with particular values either by matching statements already on a database or by inferring values from such unified statements.

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• A standard example is that the antecedent-consequent couple is a

?x personloves ?x mary means every person loves Mary. • So the statement on a database loves John mary is true by implication if the statement is a John

person is on the database.

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• There can be a set of such statements that depend on one another including, in this example, an antecedent with the consequent is a

?x person that unifies the variable ?x with John.

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• Because the sequence in which these implications are found to be true for particular instances (i.e., the order in which these implications are instantiated) is not imposed a priori in the writing of the declarative model, they can be said to emerge by computation with the model.

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• So when we run a declarative simulation model, the sequence of implications that are drawn, including implications that entail actions by individuals, emerges during the course of the run.

• Whereas the processes are programmed to determine the resulting states in a procedural model, the states determine the processes in a declarative model.

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An Example• Let us consider what knowledge an alphabetical

sorter would need:– ■ Implicit knowledge that A comes before B, etc.– ■ This is easy — real integer comparison of (ASCII)

codes for <???>.– ■ All programs contain procedural knowledge of this

sort.– ■ The procedural information here is that knowledge

of how to alphabetize is represented explicitly in the alphabetization procedure.

• A declarative system might need to have explicit facts as A comes before B, B comes before C, etc.

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Gathering Declarative Knowledge

• There are many ways to gather declarative knowledge:– Advanced organizers, – metaphoric devices, and – review

• can be used to activate prior knowledge.

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– Associational techniques (mnemonics, images, and analogies),

– organizational techniques (graphic and advance organizers), and

– elaborative techniques

• can be used for the processing of information.

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• Underlining, listing, and reflecting as well as the use of questions help focus attention.

• focus attention– Underlining, – listing, – reflecting – the use of questions

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• Mnemonics, elaboration strategies, imagery, analogy, organization, chunking, linking, graphic organizers, and rehearsals are all learning strategies that can be employed.

• learning strategies– Mnemonics, – elaboration strategies, – imagery, – analogy, – organization, – chunking, – linking, – graphic organizers, and – rehearsals

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• Practice should involve paraphrased or verbatim recall. – This recall should take place over a period of time. – The more exposure people have to new material,

the more likely they are to remember it.

• Feedback should evaluate whether the information given is complete and correct. – If an error has been made, the feedback should

point out the error and offer suggestions on how to fix the mistake.

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• Declarative knowledge is knowledge of what is true and can be communicated directly to other individuals. – For example, an Englishman may have both

procedural and declarative knowledge about the game of cricket.

– He can explain the rules of the game and describe or show a novice how to stand at the wicket or where to stand if he is to play off-stump, or what to do if he is the wicketkeeper, or the necessity of keeping the bowling arm straight at the elbow.

• All of this knowledge is declarative.

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Methods for Eliciting Declarative Knowledge

• Table 1 through Table 11 list several methods used to elicit declarative knowledge.

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1) Card Sorting

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1) Card Sorting (cont.)

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2) Data Flow Modeling

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3) Document Analysis

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4) Entity-Relationship Modeling

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5) Entity Life Modeling

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6) Interviewing

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7) Laddered Grids

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8) Object Oriented Modeling

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9) Ratings Analyzed by Multidimensional

Scaling (MDS)

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9) Ratings Analyzed by Multidimensional

Scaling (MDS) (cont.)

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10) Repertory Grid (General)

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10) Repertory Grid (General) (cont.)

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11) Semantic Nets

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End of SlidesAny Question?

If not, end of lecture

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