Redundancy

Knowledge redundancy is the extra load of knowledge that looks at the same thing from a different perspective. For example, Apples are healthy and Apples contain vitamins may overlap in their message depending on the context (e.g. assisted by the knowledge of the fact: Vitamins are important for health).

Knowledge redundancy may add cost to learning. However, in many cases, it can reduce the cost of learning and improve knowledge coherence. The key trick behind a good use of redundancy is to use many simple questions instead of a complex question. In addition, asking similar questions in different contexts, contributes to coherence, which contributes to stability. In other words, an experienced student will judiciously use knowledge redundancy to reduce the cost of learning. Judicious use requires some expertise that comes with practice. Incremental reading makes it easy to develop good learning instincts and habits in making good choices about redundancy.

Most of all, the concept of knowledge darwinism plays a major role in the spontaneous emergence of solid knowledge coherence in learning. Knowledge Darwinism assists the student in building coherent knowledge structures.

See also: Knowledge redundancy in incremental reading

This glossary entry is used to explain SuperMemo, a pioneer of spaced repetition software since 1987