Further , conjugate priors may give intuition , by more transparently showing how a likelihood function updates a prior distribution .
A conjugate prior is an algebraic convenience , giving a closed - form expression for the posterior ; otherwise numerical integration may be necessary .
Conjugate priors may give intuition , by more transparently showing how a likelihood function updates a prior distribution .
A conjugate prior is an algebraic convenience , giving a closed - form expression for the posterior ; otherwise numerical integration may be necessary .