In the fields of neuropsychology, personal development and education, Learning is one of the most important mental function of humans, animals and artificial cognitive systems. It relies on the acquisition of different types of knowledge supported by perceived information. It leads to the development of new capacities, skills, values, understanding, and preferences. Its goal is the increasing of individual and group experience. Learning functions can be performed by different brain learning processes, which depend on the mental capacities of learning subject, the type of knowledge which has to be acquitted, as well as on socio-cognitive and environmental circumstances.

Learning ranges from simple forms of learning such as habituation and classical conditioning seen in many animal species, to more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals and humans. Therefore, in general, a learning can be conscious and not conscious.

For example, for small children, non-conscious learning processes are as natural as breathing. In fact, there is evidence for 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.

From the social perspective, learning is the goal of teaching and education.

Conscious learning is a capacity requested by students, therefore is usually goal-oriented and requires a motivation.

Learning has also been mathematically modeled using a differential equation related to an arbitrarily defined knowledge indicator with respect to time, and dependent on a number of interacting factors (constants and variables) such as initial knowledge, motivation, intelligence, knowledge anchorage or resistance, etc. Thus, learning does not occur if there is no change in the amount of knowledge even for a long time, and learning is negative if the amount of knowledge is decreasing in time. Inspection of the solution to the differential equation also shows the sigmoid and logarithmic decay learning curves, as well as the knowledge carrying capacity for a given learner.

Physiology of learning

"Thought," in a general sense, is commonly conceived as something arising from the stimulation of neurons in the brain. Current understanding of neurons and the central nervous system implies that the process of learning corresponds to changes in the relationship between certain neurons in the brain. Research is ongoing in this area.Fact: date=October 2007

It is generally recognized that memory is more easily retained when multiple parts of the brain are stimulated, such as through combinations of hearing, seeing, smelling, motor skills, touch sense, and logical thinking.Fact: date=October 2007