# What are hyperparameters, and how do they impact performance?

_Last updated: 2026-07-20_  
_Reviewed by: Jason Burns, Editorial Steward_  
_Published by: AIDirectAnswers.com · Licensed under Citation License 1.0_

## Short answer

Hyperparameters are the settings that govern how a model is trained or configured — learning rate, batch size, number of layers, dropout rate, temperature — as opposed to the parameters the model learns from data.

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_Author: [Jason Burns](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-randolph-burns), Editorial Steward_  
_Published: 2026-07-20 · Modified: 2026-07-20_  
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