Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences.[1] The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants.[2] Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove), but much skill and knowledge accumulates from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be lost from that which cannot be retrieved.[3]

Human learning starts at birth (it might even start before[4]) and continues until death as a consequence of ongoing interactions between people and their environment. The nature and processes involved in learning are studied in many fields, including educational psychology, neuropsychology, experimental psychology, and pedagogy. Research in such fields has led to the identification of various sorts of