General knowledge has been defined in differential psychology as "culturally valued knowledge communicated by a range of non-specialist media" and

encompassing a wide subject range.[1] This definition excludes highly specialized learning that can only be obtained with extensive training and information confined to a single medium. General knowledge is an important component of crystallized intelligence and is strongly associated with general intelligence, and weakly associated with openness to experience.[2] Studies have found that people who are highly knowledgeable in a particular domain tend to be knowledgeable in many.[1][3][4][5] General knowledge is thought to be supported by long-term semantic memory ability.[3] A number of studies have found that males tend to have greater overall general knowledge than females, perhaps due to gender differences in interests rather than memory ability.[1] Recent studies have found that general knowledge is associated with exam performance in schoolchildren [6] and proofreading skills.[7]