learning

learn·ing

L0090900 (lûr′nĭng)n.1. The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill.2. Knowledge or skill gained through schooling or study. See Synonyms at knowledge.3. Psychology Behavioral modification especially through experience or conditioning.

learning

(ˈlɜːnɪŋ) n1. knowledge gained by study; instruction or scholarship2. the act of gaining knowledge3. (Psychology) psychol any relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a direct result of experience

learn•ing

(ˈlɜr nɪŋ)

n. 1. knowledge acquired by systematic study in any field of scholarly application. 2. the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill. 3. Psychol. the modification of behavior through practice, training, or experience. [before 900] syn: learning, erudition, scholarship refer to facts or ideas acquired through systematic study. learning usu. refers to knowledge gained from extensive reading and formal instruction: Her vast learning is reflected in her many books. erudition suggests a thorough and profound knowledge of a difficult subject: His erudition in languages is legendary. scholarship suggests a high degree of mastery in a specialized field, along with an analytical or innovative ability suited to the academic world: The author is renowned for several works of classical scholarship.

Learning

See also knowledge; questioning; understanding.
academicism, academism1. the mode of teaching or of procedure in a private school, college, or university.
2. a tendency toward traditionalism or conventionalism in art, literature, music, etc.
3. any attitudes or ideas that are learned or scholarly but lacking in worldliness, common sense, or practicality. — academie, n., adj. — academist, n.anti-intellectualismantagonism to learning, education, and the educated, expressed in literature in a conscious display of simplicity, earthiness, even colorful semi-literacy. — anti-intellectual, n., adj.autodidacticsthe process of teaching oneself. — autodidact, n.bluestockingism1. the state of being a pedantic or literal-minded woman.
2. behavior characteristic of such a woman.clerisymen of learning as a class or collectively; the intelligentsia or literati.didacticism1. the practice of valuing literature, etc., primarily for its instructional content.
2. an inclination to teach or lecture others too much, especially by preaching and moralizing.
3. a pedantic, dull method of teaching. — didact, n. — didactic, adj.didacticsthe art or science of teaching.doctrinismthe state of being devoted to something that is taught. — doctrinist, n.educationist1. British. aneducator.
2. a specialist in the theory and methods of education. Also called educationalist.Froebelista person who supports or uses the system of kindergarten education developed by Friedrich Froebel, German educational reformer. Also Froebelian.gymnasiasta student in a gymnasium, a form of high school in Europe. See also athletics.Gymnasium(in Europe) a name given to a high school at which students prepare for university entrance.literatimen of letters or learning; scholars as a group.literatora scholarly or literary person; one of the literati.lucubration1. the practice of reading, writing, or studying at night, especially by artificial light; “burning the midnight oil.”
2. the art or practice of writing learnedly. — lucubrator, n. — lucubrate, v.opsimathyRare. 1. a late education.
2. the process of acquiring education late in life.paideutics, paedeuticsthe science of learning.pedagogics, paedogogicsthe science or art of teaching or education. — pedagogue, paedagogue, pedagog, n. — pedagogie, paedagogic, pedagogical, paedagogical, adj.pedagogism1. the art of teaching.
2. teaching that is pedantic, dogmatic, and formal.pedagogy, paedagogy1. the function or work of a teacher; teaching.
2. the art or method of teaching; pedagogics.pedanticism1. the character or practices of a pedant, as excessive display of learning.
2. a slavish attention to rules, details, etc; pedantry. — pedant, n. — pedantic, adj.pedantocracyrule or government by pedants; domination of society by pedants.pedantrypedanticism, def. 2.polytechnica school of higher education offering instruction in a variety of vocational, technical, and scientific subjects. — polytechnic, adj.professorialismthe qualities, actions, and thoughts characteristic of a professor. — professorial, adj.propaedeuticsthe basic principles and rules preliminary to the study of an art or science. — propaedeutic, propaedeutical, adj.quadriviumin the Middle Ages, one of the two divisions of the seven liberal arts, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. See also trivium.realiaobjects, as real money, utensils, etc., used by a teacher in the classroom to illustrate aspects of daily life.savanta scholar or person of great learning.scholarcha head of a school, especially the head of one of the ancient Athenian schools of philosophy.sophist1. Ancient Greece. a teacher of rhetoric, philosophy, etc.; hence, a learned person.
2. one who is given to the specious arguments often used by the sophists. — sophistic, sophistical, adj.sophistry1. the teachings and ways of teaching of the Greek sophists.
2. specious or fallacious reasoning, as was sometimes used by the sophists.Sorbonista doctor of the Sorbonne, of the University of Paris.symposiarchAncient Greece. the master of a feast or symposium; hence, a person presiding over a banquet or formal discussion.symposiast Rare.a person participating in a symposium.symposiumlearned discussion of a particular topic. Also spelled symposion.technographythe study and description of arts and sciences from the point of view of their historical development, geographical, and ethnic distribution.theorista person who forms theories or who specializes in the theory of a particular subject.triviumin the Middle Ages, one of the two divisions of the seven liberal arts, comprising logic, grammar, and rhetoric. See also quadrivium.tyrologyRare. a set of instructions for beginners.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	learning - the cognitive process of acquiring skill or knowledge; "the child's acquisition of language"acquisitionbasic cognitive process - cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledgeconditioning - a learning process in which an organism's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in its environmentdevelopmental learning - learning that takes place as a normal part of cognitive developmentdigestion - learning and coming to understand ideas and information; "his appetite for facts was better than his digestion"education - the gradual process of acquiring knowledge; "education is a preparation for life"; "a girl's education was less important than a boy's"internalisation, internalization, incorporation - learning (of values or attitudes etc.) that is incorporated within yourselfimprinting - a learning process in early life whereby species specific patterns of behavior are establishedlanguage learning - learning to use a languagecommittal to memory, memorisation, memorization - learning so as to be able to remember verbatim; "the actor's memorization of his lines"study, work - applying the mind to learning and understanding a subject (especially by reading); "mastering a second language requires a lot of work"; "no schools offer graduate study in interior design"carry-over, transfer of training, transfer - application of a skill learned in one situation to a different but similar situation
	2.	learning - profound scholarly knowledgeencyclopaedism, encyclopedism, eruditeness, erudition, learnedness, scholarshipeducation - knowledge acquired by learning and instruction; "it was clear that he had a very broad education"letters - scholarly attainment; "he is a man of letters"

learning

noun knowledge, study, education, schooling, research, scholarship, tuition, enlightenment The library is the focal point of learning on the campus.Quotations
"Much learning doth make thee mad" Bible: Acts
"The further one goes, the less one knows" [Lao-tze Tao Te Ching]
"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something" [Thomas Henry Huxley memorial stone]
"Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous" [Confucius Analects]
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;"
"Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:"
"There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,"
"And drinking largely sobers us again" [Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism]
"That one gets used to everything -"
"One gets used to that."
"The usual name for it is"
"A learning process" [Hans Magnus Enzensberger The Force of Habit]

learning

nounKnown facts, ideas, and skill that have been imparted:education, erudition, instruction, knowledge, scholarship, science.

Translations

学问

learn

(ləːn) – past tense, past participles learned, ~learnt – verb1. to get to know. It was then that I learned that she was dead.获悉2. to gain knowledge or skill (in). A child is always learning; to learn French; She is learning (how) to swim.学习ˈlearned (-nid) adjective having or showing great learning. a learned professor.有学问的ˈlearner noun a person who is in process of learning. Be patient – I'm only a learner; (also adjective) a learner driver.学习者ˈlearning noun knowledge which has been gained by learning. The professor was a man of great learning.学问learner-friendly adjective that is easy or simple for use in learning. This textbook is learner-friendly.学习界面友好

learning

learning,

in psychology, the process by which a relatively lasting change in potential behavior occurs as a result of practice or experience. Learning is distinguished from behavioral changes arising from such processes as maturation and illness, but does apply to motor skills, such as driving a car, to intellectual skills, such as reading, and to attitudes and values, such as prejudice. There is evidence that neurotic symptoms and patterns of mental illness are also learned behavior. Learning occurs throughout life in animals, and learned behavior accounts for a large proportion of all behavior in the higher animals, especially in humans.

Models of Learning

The scientific investigation of the learning process was begun at the end of the 19th cent. by Ivan PavlovPavlov, Ivan Petrovich
, 1849–1936, Russian physiologist and experimental psychologist. He was professor at the military medical academy and director of the physiology department at the Institute for Experimental Medicine, St. Petersburg, from 1890.
..... Click the link for more information. in Russia and Edward ThorndikeThorndike, Edward Lee
, 1874–1949, American educator and psychologist, b. Williamsburg, Mass., grad. Wesleyan Univ., 1895, and Harvard, 1896, Ph.D. Columbia, 1898.
..... Click the link for more information. in the United States. Three models are currently widely used to explain changes in learned behavior; two emphasize the establishment of relations between stimuli and responses, and the third emphasizes the establishment of cognitive structures. Albert Bandura maintained (1977) that learning occurs through observation of others, or models; it has been suggested that this type of learning occurs when children are exposed to violence in the media.

Classical Conditioning

The first model, classical conditioning, was initially identified by Pavlov in the salivation reflex of dogs. Salivation is an innate reflex, or unconditioned response, to the presentation of food, an unconditioned stimulus. Pavlov showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate merely to the sound of a buzzer (a conditioned stimulus), after it was sounded a number of times in conjunction with the presentation of food. Learning is said to occur because salivation has been conditioned to a new stimulus that did not elicit it initially. The pairing of food with the buzzer acts to reinforce the buzzer as the prominent stimulus.

Operant Conditioning

A second type of learning, known as operant conditioning, was developed around the same time as Pavlov's theory by Thorndike, and later expanded upon by B. F. SkinnerSkinner, Burrhus Frederic,
1904–90, American psychologist, b. Susquehanna, Pa. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as an instructor until 1936, when he moved to the Univ. of Minnesota (1937–45) and to Indiana Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. . Here, learning takes place as the individual acts upon the environment. Whereas classical conditioning involves innate reflexes, operant conditioning requires voluntary behavior. Thorndike showed that an intermittent reward is essential to reinforce learning, while discontinuing the use of reinforcement tends to extinguish the learned behavior. The famous Skinner box demonstrated operant conditioning by placing a rat in a box in which the pressing of a small bar produces food. Skinner showed that the rat eventually learns to press the bar regularly to obtain food. Besides reinforcement, punishment produces avoidance behavior, which appears to weaken learning but not curtail it. In both types of conditioning, stimulus generalization occurs; i.e., the conditioned response may be elicited by stimuli similar to the original conditioned stimulus but not used in the original training. Stimulus generalization has enormous practical importance, because it allows for the application of learned behaviors across different contexts. Behavior modification is a type of treatment resulting from these stimulus/response models of learning. It operates under the assumption that if behavior can be learned, it can also be unlearned (see behavior therapybehavior therapy
or behavior modification,
in psychology, treatment of human behavioral disorders through the reinforcement of acceptable behavior and suppression of undesirable behavior.
..... Click the link for more information. ).

Cognitive Learning

A third approach to learning is known as cognitive learning. Wolfgang KöhlerKöhler, Wolfgang
, 1887–1967, American psychologist, b. Estonia, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1909. From 1913 to 1920 he was director of a research station on Tenerife, Canary Islands.
..... Click the link for more information. showed that a protracted process of trial-and-error may be replaced by a sudden understanding that grasps the interrelationships of a problem. This process, called insight, is more akin to piecing together a puzzle than responding to a stimulus. Edward TolmanTolman, Edward Chace,
1886–1959, American psychologist, b. West Newton, Mass., grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1911; Ph. D. Harvard, 1915. He spent most of his academic career at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, where he taught psychology (1918–54).
..... Click the link for more information. (1930) found that unrewarded rats learned the layout of a maze, yet this was not apparent until they were later rewarded with food. Tolman called this latent learning, and it has been suggested that the rats developed cognitive maps of the maze that they were able to apply immediately when a reward was offered.

Bibliography

See T. Tighe, Modern Learning Theory (1982); B. Schwartz, Psychology of Learning and Behavior (2d ed. 1983).

Learning

the acquisition of knowledge, abilities, and habits. In contrast to the pedagogical concepts of training, education, and upbringing, the term “learning” is used primarily in the psychology of behavior and embraces a broad range of the processes that make up individual experience. Among the phenomena classified as learning are habituation, imprinting, the development of the simplest conditioned reflexes and complex motor and speech skills, reactions in sensory discrimination, and intelligent learning (in humans).

Like “instinctive behavior,” “learning” is a fundamental concept of ethology that refers to the adaptation of an animal to its environment by changes in its innate behavior. There are two basic forms of learning: obligatory learning (mainly imprinting), which is characteristic of all individuals of a given species; and facultative learning (chiefly habit, and, to some degree, imitation), which is characteristic of the behavior of some individuals and depends on the specific conditions of their lives.

An enormous number of experiments, many of them conducted on animals in the USA within the framework of behaviorism, have been devoted to the processes of learning. Attention has been focused on elucidating the influence of various factors on learning, including the number and distribution of repetitions, reinforcement (the law of effect), the type of conditioning of responses, and dependency on the state of need. More complex are the problems of the transfer of the results of learning to conditions that differ from those in the original learning situation, latent learning, and the formation of sensorimotor structures and sensory syntheses that function as the internal variables of behavior, or its psychological links.

Most research on learning, which is usually defined as adaptation to the conditions created in the experiment, has concentrated on the simplest, “passive” forms of acquiring habits, including sensory and mental ones. Therefore, the results of this research cannot be extended to forms of learning that are specific to humans. The historical experience of mankind is transmitted to certain persons by means of education, one of society’s most important functions, which is entrusted specifically to schools and other pedagogical institutions.

REFERENCES

Eksperimental’naia psikhologiia, issue 4. Edited by P. Fraisse and J. Piaget. Moscow, 1973.
Thorndike, E. L. The Psychology of Learning. New York, 1921.
Hilgard, E. R. , and D. G. Marquis. Conditioning and Learning. New York-London, 1940.
Skinner, B. F. Verbal Behavior. New York, 1957.
Thorpe, W. H. Learning and Instinct in Animals. London, 1963.

A. N. LEONT’EV

learning

[′lər·niŋ] (psychology) The gathering, processing, storage, and recall of information received through the senses.

learning

Psychol any relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a direct result of experience

learning

learn·ing

learning

learn•ing

Learning

learning

learning

learn

learning

learn (something) the hard way

learn (something) by heart

a little learning is a dangerous thing

learn a thing or two

learn about (someone or something)

learn by

learn by rote

learn from (someone or something)

learn (something) from the bottom up

learn of (someone or something)

growth experience

learning experience

growth experience

learn a thing or two

learn by something

learn something by rote

little knowledge is a dangerous thing

There is no royal road to learning.

little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a

little learning is a dangerous thing, a

learning

learning,

Models of Learning

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Learning

Bibliography

Learning

REFERENCES

learning

learning

learning

learning

learn·ing

learning

learn·ing

learning

learn·ing

Patient discussion about learning

learning

Synonyms for learning

noun knowledge

Synonyms

Synonyms for learning

noun known facts, ideas, and skill that have been imparted

Synonyms

Synonyms for learning

noun the cognitive process of acquiring skill or knowledge

Synonyms

Related Words

noun profound scholarly knowledge

Synonyms

Related Words