Features of Learning

Learning can be defined as any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential that is produced by experience or practice. Two words in this definition do most of the work: "relatively permanent" and "experience." A behavioural change counts as learning only if it results from what an organism has gone through — practising a task, repeating an experience, or having a single memorable encounter — and only if that change lasts beyond the moment. This is why certain everyday changes in behaviour are specifically excluded from the category of learning. Fatigue produces a temporary drop in performance (a person stops reading or driving because they are tired), but the underlying ability to read or drive is unaffected and returns once the tiredness passes — so fatigue-based change is not learning. Similarly, drugs, sedatives, and alcohol alter behaviour by changing physiological functioning, but the effect wears off, so it is not learning either. Habituation — the gradual weakening of an orienting reflex to a stimulus that keeps repeating, such as no longer noticing continuous background noise from a nearby function — is also excluded, because it is a general decline in responsiveness to repeated stimulation rather than an experience-based, lasting change tied to a specific new behaviour. …