In China, the word learning is a compound word of "learning" and "learning". Confucius was the first person to put these two words together. Confucius said, "Why don't you say something when you learn it?" I mean, isn't it a pleasure to review in time and often after learning? Obviously, the compound noun of learning comes from this famous saying of Confucius. According to Confucius and other ancient educators in China, "learning" means listening and watching, acquiring knowledge and skills, which mainly refers to accepting perceptual knowledge and book knowledge, and sometimes includes the meaning of thinking. "Learning" means consolidating knowledge and skills, which generally has three meanings: review, internship, practice, and sometimes the meaning of line. "Learning" focuses on the ideological field, and "learning" focuses on action practice. Learning is a process of acquiring knowledge, forming skills and cultivating intelligence. In essence, it is a general term for learning, thinking, learning and doing.

First, learning is a necessary means for individual survival.

Animals and people are inseparable from learning. Learning is a necessary condition for animals and people to keep balance with the environment, maintain their survival and development, and also a means to adapt to the environment.

In order to survive and continue the population in the acquired environment, animals must first rely on the innate population instinct behavior, but this innate instinct can only adapt to the relatively fixed or small and slow external environment.

In order to survive, animals and people must also gain individual experience through learning. This acquired behavioral experience can adapt to relatively rapid changes, and its significance is obviously much more important than innate instinct. For example, a lamb keeps learning from its mother, knowing where to find abundant food and how to avoid being chased by wolves. If lambs don't study, they can't adapt to the changing external environment and survive.

However, the role and importance of learning in individual life are very different among various animals. The higher an animal is, the more complicated its lifestyle is, the less the role of instinctive behavior is, and the greater the importance of learning is. In lower animals, there are few behaviors and the speed of acquisition is very slow, so learning can be said to have little impact on their lives. For example, after the birth of protozoa, most of the actions in their lives have already appeared, and most of the reactions needed the day after tomorrow have already been met. Their learning ability is very low, and the time to keep experience is very short, so the result of learning has little influence on their lives.

Man is the tallest animal, with an extremely complicated lifestyle and the most unstable instinctive behavior. Most human behaviors are acquired, and the ability to learn and the role of learning in human individual life are bound to be the greatest. Compared with newborn animals, the independence and innate adaptability of human infants are relatively low. It can be said that babies can't survive without the support of their parents. However, human beings have incomparable learning ability, and can adapt to the environment quickly and widely through learning. For example, growing grain, obtaining food, and relying on learning; Defeating natural enemies such as poisonous snakes and beasts, and dealing with the terrible plague will not be completely annihilated, but also depends on learning. Generally speaking, compared with other animals in nature, such as lions, tigers and even sparrows, people are at a disadvantage in many ways. People can become the spirit of all things through learning. There is a famous saying abroad, which is called "no learning, no skill". 1972, the Commission for International Education Development of UNESCO published a famous research report "Learn to survive", which directly linked learning with survival, showing the importance of learning to human survival.

Second, learning can promote people's maturity.

With the growth of age, people's physiology and psychology will gradually mature. But maturity is not a purely natural process completely divorced from the influence of environment and learning. The influence of learning on maturity is first supported by animal psychology research.

In recent twenty or thirty years, many psychologists have found that the environmental richness of animals, especially newborn animals, can affect the development and maturity of animal senses, as well as the weight, structure and chemical composition of the brain, thus affecting the development of wisdom.

D krech (1966) divided the young rats into three groups: the first group was given abundant stimulation, which made its response more and more complicated; Let the second group live a normal life in the cage; The third group was completely isolated from environmental stimuli. After 80 days, three groups of young rats were dissected and compared. The results show that the first group is the best and the third group is the worst in terms of the weight and density of cerebral cortex. The three groups also showed significant differences in acetylcholinesterase, which is closely related to nerve impulse transmission. The first group is the richest, the second group is the second, and the third group is the least.

Rosencssveig (M.R. Rosenzweig, 1972) also found that within 4- 10 weeks, the weight and thickness of cerebral cortex, the number of glial cells, the number of synapses and the content of acetylcholinesterase in the former group were higher than those in the other group with monotonous environment and lack of learning and training.

Regarding the influence of human learning on maturity, J Piaget (1969), a famous Swiss child psychologist, believes that children's maturity must be promoted through skill practice. He also said: "As children grow older, the importance of natural and social environmental influences will increase."

White's experimental study on hand-eye coordination of newborn babies shows that learning and training can promote maturity. White found that trained babies can hold the object in front of them with their hands up at an average of 3.5 months, and their eye-hand coordination is equivalent to that of untrained babies for 5 months. This shows that learning and training promote maturity, and learning promotes the development of potential and the improvement of ability.

Some scholars' research shows that in the four or five years after the baby is born, in addition to nutritional conditions, lack of proper study and training or improper education will also bring adverse effects on the development of the brain.

Some people study the cerebral cortex of deaf-mute people after death, and find that the part that controls the audio-visual organs has a shrinking trend; After testing the congenital blind, it is found that their eye movements are irregular, and it is difficult to concentrate on one point, and it is difficult to accurately distinguish between circles and squares. Kamala, an Indian wolf child, was about seven or eight years old when he returned to human society, but his intelligence level was only equivalent to that of a six-month-old baby. She was about 16 years old when she died, which may only be equivalent to the intelligence level of a child of three or four years old.

These studies and facts show that early study, training and the corresponding cultural environment have certain influence on the development of human sensory organs, brain and other physical functions.

Accordingly, help for children should be based on their maturity, and we can't wait for them to mature. Appropriate learning content, reasonable training methods and educational methods should be combined at appropriate "growing points" to promote their physical and mental maturity.

Third, learning can improve people's quality.

Learning can improve people's cultural quality. In the process of social and historical development, human beings have created a lot of material culture and spiritual culture. Especially in spiritual and cultural achievements, such as literature, art, education and science. We need to acquire them through study in order to improve our cultural quality. People who lack certain cultural literacy can't be considered as truly sound people, and the new talents in modern society must be people with higher cultural literacy.

Learning can optimize people's psychological quality. New talents in modern society should have many good psychological qualities, such as noble character, extraordinary temperament, dedication, single-minded personality and perseverance, and so on. These can be achieved through learning. As Thackeray said, "Reading can enlighten the soul, perfect and strengthen personality, stimulate people's good wishes, increase people's intelligence and cultivate people's hearts."

Fourth, learning is the bridge and link for the continuation and development of civilization.

Morgan, a famous American ethnologist and primitive social historian, believes that the history of human society can be summarized into three eras, namely, the age of ignorance, the age of barbarism and the age of civilization. In the age of ignorance, human beings lived in tropical or subtropical forests for generations, feeding on wild fruits and plant roots, and a few lived in trees. With the change of the earth's crust and climate, human beings have to move from trees to the ground, and learn survival skills such as eating fish, using fire, making stone tools, using bows and arrows, and grinding stone tools. In the barbaric times, humans learned to make pottery, domesticate and breed animals and plant plants. In the later period of this era, he also learned to smelt iron ore and invented characters, thus making human history transition to civilized times.

From this point of view, the continuation and development of human civilization is like a grand and protracted relay race: the previous generation gained the experience of maintaining survival and development through labor and life, constantly summed up, accumulated and improved, formed knowledge and skills and passed them on to future generations; The younger generation will further enrich and improve on the basis of learning the experience of predecessors to adapt to the changes of the times and environment. This has been handed down from generation to generation, forming a history of continuous development of human civilization.

Obviously, people in barbaric times can only live like their ancestors if they don't learn to use fire from generation to generation; If people in civilized times don't learn animal husbandry and agriculture from their ancestors, they can only live on ready-made natural products like their distant ancestors.

In addition, it is worth noting that due to the accelerated development of human civilization in a sense, the role of learning activities in human society is more obvious.

The appearance of the steam engine marked the technological revolution in the18th century. At that time, innovative experts such as Grievous, newcomen and Watt finally invented the steam engine by studying, designing, manufacturing and experimenting with physics and mechanics. /kloc-the technological revolution in the 0/9th century was marked by electricity. The creation of this new productive force is the crystallization of countless people's learning and creation. German Hertz discovered that electricity produces magnetism, Faraday discovered that magnetism produces electricity and established the law of electromagnetic induction, Maxwell established the electromagnetic theory and Maxwell equation, Siemens invented the generator, Depreux developed the high-voltage transmission technology, and so on, thus prompting mankind to enter the electric power era. The new technological revolution marked by computer, atomic energy and space technology in this century has once again proved the great impetus of learning. In this information age, we only need to consider the fact that we can buy a PC with excellent performance at a very cheap price, roam freely on the Internet and know what is happening in the world without going out. We can't help but marvel at the great changes that science and technology have brought to real life, and we can't help but admit that learning plays an important role in the progress of our human civilization.

A broad definition of learning:

(1) Sup (Thorpe, 1963):

Learning is a process, which is manifested as the adaptive change of individual behavior produced by experience.

Kimble (kimble, 196 1):

Learning is the continuous change of behavior potential caused by intensive practice.

(3) Gagne (Gagne, 1965):

Learning is a change of human tendency or ability, which can be maintained and cannot be simply attributed to the process of growth.

(4) Whitlock (Eittrock, 1977):

Learning is a term that describes the process of experience change. It is a relatively changing learning process in cognition, attitude, knowledge, information, ability and experience and skills.

(5) winfield (Winfield 1979):

Learning is a lasting change in behavior or knowledge caused by practice or experience.

(6) Bauer and Hilgard (Bauer, Hilgard, 198 1);

Learning refers to the change of the subject's behavior or behavior potential caused by small repeated experiences in a given situation.

(7) Pan Wei (1980):

Learning is a process in which people and animals gain individual behavior experience in the course of life.

(8) Zhang Chunxiang (1994):

Learning is a process in which individual behavior or behavior potential changes and lasts for a long time due to experience.

(9) Chen Qi (1997):

Learning is a lasting change in behavior or thinking caused by experience.

(10) Pi Liansheng (1997):

Learning is a process in which human meridians interact with their environment, resulting in relatively stable changes in ability or tendency.

But study is not for eating!

Learning and memory are one of the important functions of the brain. Learning refers to the neural activity process that people and animals change their behaviors to adapt to the environment by experience, while memory is the neural activity process that stores and "reads" the learned information. The establishment of conditioned reflex is the simplest learning and memory process.

(A) the process of human learning and memory

In the external environment, a lot of information often enters the brain through sensory organs. It is estimated that only 1% information can be stored for a long time, but most of it has been forgotten. Information that can be stored for a long time is information that repeatedly acts on the brain and is of great significance to individuals. The storage of information in the brain can be divided into two stages: short-term memory and long-term memory. In short-term memory, the storage of information is unstable. For example, if you just read a phone number, you will soon forget it. Only through repeated use can you turn it into a solid long-term memory.

Short-term memory and long-term memory can be further divided into four continuous stages: sensory memory, primary memory, secondary memory and tertiary memory. The first two stages are equivalent to short-term memory, and the last two stages are equivalent to long-term memory. Sensory memory refers to the stage when information enters the sensory area of the brain through sensory organs and is stored for no more than 1 second. If the discontinuous and continuous input information is integrated into a new continuous impression after processing, the sensory memory will be transferred to the first-level memory. The signal is only stored in the primary memory for a few seconds. If you study and use it repeatedly, the information will circulate in the primary memory, prolonging the time of the primary memory, so that it can be transferred to the secondary memory, and the memory lasts for several minutes to several years. Some traces of memory, such as one's own name and daily operation skills, are not easy to forget through years of use. This kind of memory belongs to tertiary memory.

Learning and memory mechanism

In neurophysiology, the aftereffect of neuronal activity is the basis of sensory memory. In the nervous system, many loops are formed between neurons, which may be the basis of primary memory. As mentioned earlier, the hippocampus is closely related to memory.

In neurobiochemistry, long-term memory may be related to the synthesis of protein in the brain. In the process of establishing conditioned reflex in goldfish, if puromycin is used to inhibit the synthesis of protein in the brain, animals cannot establish conditioned reflex, and their learning and memory abilities are obviously impaired.

In neuroanatomy, permanent memory may be related to the establishment of new synapses. It is observed in the experiment that the cerebral cortex of rats living in complex environment is thicker, while that of rats living in simple environment is thinner. This shows that rats with more learning and memory activities have developed cerebral cortex and more synaptic connections.

(3) Neurotransmitters that affect learning and memory.

The central cholinergic transmitter system is related to learning and memory. Acetylcholine transmitter exists in the ascending excitation system and cerebral cortex of brainstem reticular structure, which excites the cerebral cortex and provides basic activity background for learning and memory. There are also abundant acetylcholine transmitters in hippocampus, whose activity can promote the maintenance of primary memory and the transfer from primary memory to secondary memory. It has been observed that normal young subjects can cause memory loss after taking atropine for a long time. It has also been observed in animals that the injection of scopolamine (an anticholinergic drug) will also reduce the learning and memory ability. Its mechanism may be blocking the function of hippocampus and affecting the process of transferring primary memory to secondary memory. Amnesia in the elderly may be caused by dysfunction of the central cholinergic transmitter system; Choline drugs can improve the memory function of the elderly. However, excessive use of choline drugs will lead to memory loss, so medication must be cautious.

In addition, vasopressin in the posterior pituitary gland is also related to learning and memory. After animal training, vasopressin injection into dentate gyrus of hippocampus can enhance memory. Clinical studies have found that the content of pituitrin in the blood of the elderly is reduced, and nasal vasopressin can improve memory efficiency; Using vasopressin to treat amnesia can get certain effect.

Since it is so important to the question of what "learning" is, let's first look at the concept of learning extracted from the dictionary of learning science!

Learning is an ancient and eternal phenomenon. Due to different historical conditions and different research angles, different learning views have also been formed. Throughout the discussion of learning concepts by scholars at home and abroad, there are ten representative ones: 1. The theory of textual exegesis. In ancient China, learning and learning were always separated. The etymology points out that "learning" means "imitation", that is, acquiring knowledge; "Learning" means "reviewing" and "practicing", which means reviewing and consolidating. It was Confucius who first linked learning with learning. "The Analects of Confucius" said: Always learn without being bad! Later, the Book of Rites said that "the eagle is still learning". This is the origin of the word learning. The second is the theory of behavior change. Behaviorism holds that learning is "a process of behavioral change". The third is the theory of experience acquisition-behavior change. The teacher's encyclopedic dictionary thinks that "learning refers to the process that people and animals gain individual behavior experience in the process of life." The fourth is the information processing theory. Information theory scholars believe that "learning is the whole process of learners absorbing and outputting information, and knowing whether it is correct or not through feedback and evaluation." The fifth is learning function theory. Modern Chinese Dictionary defines learning as "acquiring knowledge or skills from reading, listening and research". The sixth is to learn the theory of cognition. Pan Wei, a famous educational psychologist, believes that "human learning is a process in which individuals master human social experience" and "students' learning is a special cognitive form". Seventh, learning activity theory. Zhu, a military scholar, believes that "learning is a social activity in which individuals conduct self-cultivation and self-education under the influence of external factors such as teachers and books (natural conditions)." Eight is to learn the theory of "seeking knowledge". Xie Demin pointed out in On Learning: "The most common, simplest and essential expression of the definition of learning is knowledge." Nine is to learn the "effect" theory. Kou Qingyun, a learning researcher, believes that "the process of learning is the process of producing effects". The tenth is to learn the theory of "internalization". Pan Ziyou of the Central Institute of Education believes that learning is "a process in which the objective world is internalized into the subject and the subject develops". Each of the above ten learning views has its own reasonable aspects, which provides us with very beneficial enlightenment for fully understanding the nature of learning.

To study learning from the perspective of learning science, we think we should understand the concept of learning from two aspects. First, from the extension of learning, it refers to learning activities including animals and humans; The second level, sub-level learning, refers to human learning; The third level refers to the study of students in school; The fourth level refers to the learning of students in different classes. And what we usually say about learning generally refers to people's learning or students' learning at school. Secondly, from the connotation of learning, learning is the interaction between the subject and the environment, internalizing and gaining experience, and externalizing into behavior. The so-called "subject" is the subject who participates in learning activities, which can refer to people or learning; It can be an individual (individual learning) or a group (collective learning). The so-called "environment" is the object of learning and the external stimulus of learning. This object includes not only direct factors such as social life and social practice, but also indirect factors such as various books and periodicals, experimental equipment and audio-visual means. The so-called "internalization" refers to the learning process in which the object acts on the subject through perception, understanding, consolidation and application, and the so-called "gaining experience" refers to the result of tacit knowledge expression obtained by individuals or groups participating in learning activities. The so-called "externalization" is the learning process in which the subject reacts to the object. The result is the explicit behavior change of the subject. The so-called "activity" reflects that learning is both a cognitive activity and a practical activity. In the sense of development, learning is a process to promote the all-round development of learners' body and mind, that is, moral, intellectual and physical development. In short, learning activities should include three basic elements: subject, object and result, that is, learning is the interaction between subject and environment, internalizing and gaining experience, externalizing into behavior change activities, which is the essence of learning.

Hehe, *** 1265 is a long word! So for the above paragraph, take a look at it first, just have a basic learning concept!

Learning is a behavior that enables individuals to change. We hope that students, as the main body of activities, can gain some experience through study and reach a certain ability through the accumulation of experience. A simple understanding of experience is the acquisition of cultural knowledge and social knowledge, while ability is the degree of self-control shown in actual behavior.

The process of acquiring knowledge and mastering skills. This includes acquiring knowledge and skills through formal education and training, and accumulating knowledge and experience in daily life and practical activities.

The meaning of learning is the same in everyday language and scientific terms. However, psychologists who tend to behaviorism think that this definition is too broad to accurately define the meaning of learning. Moreover, this understanding can be used to explain human learning behavior, but it is not suitable to explain the simple learning behavior of all animals, especially some lower animals. Therefore, they define learning as "a more lasting change in potential responsiveness due to intensive practice".

This definition includes four points to understand the learning process. One is "more lasting change", which excludes temporary behavior changes such as fatigue, satiety or habituation, which are not learning.

Second, "potential reaction ability" shows that not only the obvious changes in external behavior occur through learning, but also the internal changes are difficult to observe directly. For example, latent learning and unintentional learning are obviously improved by contacting certain objects and situations, which belong to the category of learning.

Thirdly, "being reinforced" is the key part of behavioral psychology, because without reinforcement (no unconditional stimulation or no reward for the response), there will be no "more lasting change in potential response ability" and the acquired response ability will be diluted.

Fourth, "practice", the behavior to be learned must actually appear and be repeated before learning takes place. Of course, through observation and imitation, there are only internal changes and no obvious external behaviors. In addition, emphasizing the practicality of learning can also exclude the innate tendency of some species (such as the imprint of ducks) and the changes caused by the maturity of the body (such as the flight of birds) from learning.

However, there are some problems with this definition. If so, how long will it take to be considered "more durable"? If a person writes down a telephone number, when he calls a few minutes later, he must check whether the number is correct. Is this more lasting? Most people regard this as learning. Besides, what will happen after practice? Is it a change in the nervous system or a stimulus that can't cause a response that has the ability to cause a response? Does it form association, realize epiphany or give learners a new perspective? Because there is such a problem in the definition of learning, many learning theorists try to explain the essence of learning from the internal process of learning, from the process of neural activity, perception and association.

Learning is of great significance for animals to adapt to the environment, because all animals show learning behavior from the lowest protozoa. However, due to the evolution level of the nervous system, the complexity and flexibility of learning methods vary greatly. Generally speaking, instinctive behavior is dominant in lower animals, which is determined by nature, not acquired, and there are few behavioral changes that can occur through learning. Higher animals, especially human beings, focus on acquiring behaviors, and their learning methods are flexible and diverse. Learning is not only a means for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills, but also the intergenerational transmission of social culture is realized through learning activities.

The essence of learning lies in the connection between stimulus and response, but it can be divided into different types, such as trial and error learning, classical conditioning, operating conditioning, epiphany learning, potential learning, observation learning and so on. It can also be classified according to the content of learning activities and the different complexity of the situations that produce learning (see learning types and learning classification theory).

Learning has been concerned by philosophers and educators since ancient times. Ancient Greek philosophers and ancient thinkers in China had a lot of discussions in this respect. For example, Aristotle in Greece discussed feeling and memory, and Confucius in China expounded educational psychology, especially the issues of sex and habits.

/kloc-After 0/7th century, British empiricists Locke (J.) and Bekele (G.) introduced the concept of association into learning psychology, thinking that psychological processes are formed by establishing association with ideas as the basic components, and the proximity, repetition, similarity and vividness of space and time are the conditions that make association easy to form. This view was generally accepted by European psychologists in the19th century and influenced psychologists in North America. However, the scientific research on learning began at the end of 19. The famous ones are Pavlov's research on conditioned reflex, Thorndike's and E.L.' s research on trial-and-error learning, behavioral psychology's research on instrumental or operational conditioning, and Gestalt psychologists' research on epiphany.

In order to systematically explain the research results in this field and clarify the learning mechanism, psychologists of different schools put forward their own theories about learning. Among them, behaviorists advocate only experimental analysis of physical learning behavior, without resorting to hypothetical internal processes or physiological activities.

Other learning theorists disagree with this view by considering the following three situations:

(1) There is often a long time interval between the behavior of an organism and the events that trigger it, so it is necessary to imagine an intermediate variable such as habit or memory to fill this gap.

(2) In seemingly the same environment, creatures often behave differently. In order to explain this difference, it is necessary to consider the existence of unobservable different motivation States.

(3) Complex phylogeny and individual development history will affect the behavior of organisms, many of which are difficult to observe directly. Therefore, we must consider neural activity as an intermediary and an unobservable cognitive process to explain the observed behavior. Behavioral psychology has done a lot of research on learning and made great contributions to experimental methods, but at present, cognitive theory is in an advantageous position in the field of psychology and the study of learning. (See Learning Theory)

As for the neurophysiological mechanism of learning, as we all know, any learning activity, even the simplest learning, depends not on the activity of a single cell, but on the comprehensive activity of a large number of neurons, which form a complex relationship network. There have been many theoretical hypotheses about the specific performance of this relationship model in different types of learning, but so far little is known about the physiological process involved in learning.