Verb

learning

1. Present participle of learn.

   I'm learning to ride a unicycle.

Noun

Singular learning

Plural usually uncountable; plural learnings

learning (usually uncountable; plural learnings)

1. (uncountable) An act in which something is learned.

   Learning to ride a unicycle sounds exciting.

2. (uncountable) Accumulated knowledge.

   The department head was also a scholar of great learning.

3. (countable) Something that has been learned
   • 2007 April 5, Stuart Elliott, “Online Experiment for Print Magazine”, New York Times:

     “We’ll take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business.”

Derived terms

• higher learning
• learning disability
• learning by doing

Arthur L. Benton · David Bohm António Damásio · Phineas Gage Norman Geschwind · Elkhonon Goldberg Patricia Goldman Rakic · Pasko Rakic Donald O. Hebb · Kenneth Heilman Edith Kaplan · Muriel Lezak Benjamin Libet · Rodolfo Llinás Alexander Luria · Brenda Milner Karl H. Pribram · Oliver Sacks Roger W. Sperry · H. M. · K. C.

Bender-Gestalt Test Benton Visual Retention Test Clinical Dementia Rating Continuous Performance Task Glasgow Coma Scale Hayling and Brixton tests Johari window · Lexical decision task Mini-mental state examination Stroop effect Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Wisconsin card sorting

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.

Human learning may occur as part of education or personal development. It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation. The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory, and pedagogy.

Learning may occur as a result of habituation or classical conditioning, seen in many animal species, or as a result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals and humans. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed for learning and memory to occur very early on in development.

Play has been approached by several theorists as the first form of learning. Children play, experiment with the world, learn the rules, and learn to interact. Vygotsky agrees that play is pivotal for children's development, since they make meaning of their environment through play.