Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge,
behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is
possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for
some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced
by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove), but much skill and
knowledge accumulate 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.
Human learning starts at birth (it might even start before in terms of an
embryo's need for both interaction with, and freedom within its environment
within the womb.