Foundations and Types of Learning

Definition and scope of learning

Learning is the process by which humans, other animals, and some machines acquire new understanding, knowledge, behavior, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. It can occur immediately after a single event (e.g., reacting to pain from a hot stove) or gradually through repeated experience, and the resulting changes can persist for a lifetime. Learning begins early (possibly even prenatally) and continues throughout life through ongoing interactions with the environment. The scope of learning is broad: it is studied across multiple disciplines such as educational psychology, neuropsychology, experimental psychology, cognitive science, and pedagogy. Research identifies many kinds of learning, including non-associative learning (e.g., habituation and sensitization), associative learning (e.g., classical and operant conditioning), and social or complex forms such as observational learning, imprinting, and play. Learning can be conscious or unconscious, and it can be shaped by factors like instructional techniques, genetics, socioeconomic and physical conditions, psychological and epigenetic mechanisms, and differences between children’s and adults’ learning.

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Conscious versus unconscious learning

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