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has the same meaning as background knowledge, previous knowledge, personal
knowledge, etc. In this paper, we will extend the concept “prior knowledge” to
a broader sense, which also includes domain knowledge.
Prior knowledge can help us all of the time. When we do something for the
first time, we will feel hard because we don't have much prior knowledge about
it. After we do something several times and accumulate a lot of relevant prior
knowledge, we will feel easier. This indicates that prior knowledge is very helpful
to human problem solving.
In practice, prior knowledge is valuable to be incorporated into a practical
problem solving. Yu et al. [8] noticed the necessity of extra information to prob-
lem solving, and provided a mathematical expression
Generalization = Data + knowledge
(1)
This formula indicates that if you want to solve a problem at higher levels or
multiple levels of abstraction, you will have to add extra knowledge to the solved
problem. In this formula, data can be obtained from the solved problem. But
what's the knowledge here? In our opinion, the knowledge here is what we call
prior knowledge in this paper.
Prior knowledge can be obtained by learning. When we learn new knowledge,
we will assimilate it and make sense of it by connecting it to what we have already
known, or we can say that we will incorporate it into our existing knowledge
structure subconsciously. As stated in [9]: “Our representation of the world is not
necessarily identical to the actual world. We modify information that is received
through our senses, sharpening, selecting, discarding, abstracting, etc. So our
internal representation of the world is really our own construction. In other
words, human brain is not a sponge that passively absorbs information leaking
out from the environment. Instead, they continually search and synthesize.”
Which structure does prior knowledge be organized in human brain? And which
organization of prior knowledge is suitable for granular computing particularly?
These will be discussed in the next subsection.
2.2
Structure of Prior Knowledge
Some researchers have noticed the importance of knowledge structure. Mandler
[10] pointed out that meaning does not exist until some structure, or organiza-
tion, is achieved. In [11], the authors pointed out that knowledge structure is
a structured collection of concepts and their interrelationships, it includes two
dimensions: multilevel structure and multiview structure. This is in accordance
with granular structures. In [6], the authors pointed out that “the cortex's hier-
archical structure stores a model of the hierarchical structure of the real world.
The real world's nested structure is mirrored by the nested structure of your
cortex”. In an exactly analogous way, our memories of things and the way our
brain represents them are stored in the hierarchical of the cortex. In [12], the au-
thors mentioned that humans and other species represent knowledge of routine
events or stereotypical action sequences hierarchically. These indicate that prior
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