Difference Between Procedural and Declarative Knowledge

The knowledge can be expressed in the various forms to the inference engine in the computers to solve the problems in context of the rule. So, in this article, we are going to discuss the two representation of procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge. The prior difference between them is that the declarative representation just specifies the knowledge but not the mechanism to implement the knowledge. On the contrary, the procedural representation provides the control information along with the knowledge.

Computers are not able to obtain and represent knowledge by their own like humans, as it is hard for the devices to interpret and represent the knowledge in the form of natural language. So, in devices like a computer, the knowledge is managed by involving given steps such as knowledge acquisition, storing, retrieval and reasoning. The steps are described below:

• Knowledge acquisition: It gathers, structures and organizes the knowledge.
• Knowledge storing: In this step, the knowledge is reposited over the computer.
• Knowledge retrieval: This step helps in fetching the knowledge when required.
• Reasoning: It provides a conclusion, inferences or explanation.

Content: Procedural Knowledge and Declarative Knowledge

1. 1. Comparison Chart
   2. Definition
   3. Key Differences
   4. Conclusion

Comparison Chart

Basis for comparison	Procedural Knowledge	Declarative Knowledge
Basic	Includes the knowledge of how a particular thing can be accomplished.	Includes the basic knowledge about something.
Alternate name	Interpretive knowledge	Descriptive knowledge
Stated by	Direct application to the task and difficult to articulate formally.	Declarative sentences and easily articulated.
Popularity	Less common	Generally used
Ease of sharing the knowledge	Hard to communicate	Can be easily shared, copied, processed and stored.
Taken from	Experience, action, and subjective insight.	Artifact of some type as a principle, procedure, process and concepts.
Nature	Process oriented	Data-oriented
Represented by	Set of rules	Production systems
Feature	Debugging is difficult	Validation is quite simple

Definition of Procedural Knowledge

The Procedural knowledge is a type of knowledge where the essential control information that is required to use the information is integrated in the knowledge itself. It also used with an interpreter to employ the knowledge which follows the instructions given in the knowledge.

Example

Let’s understand this by an example, it can include a group of logical assertions merged with a resolution theorem prover to provide an absolute program for solving problems. Here, the implied income tax of an employee salary can be thought of as a procedural knowledge as it would require a process to calculate it as given below.

So, this is how the tax of an employee is calculated by following a lengthy process instead of just collecting facts.

Definition of Declarative Knowledge

A Declarative knowledge is where only knowledge is described but not the use to which the knowledge is employed is not provided. So, in order to use this declarative knowledge, we need to add it with a program that indicates what is to be done to the knowledge and how it is to be done.

Example

Let us understand this by the example of an employee whose ID, name, address, salary have to stored in a database where this information is fact-based does not require much effort to acquire it.

Conclusion

The procedural and declarative knowledge can easily be distinguished by identifying where control information is residing and whether it is used consciously and unconsciously.