What is learning?

If language is learned via brain based activity, then brain based functions for learning need to be defined. But to define learning in the brain, we must first recognize that learning is different when defined as a brain function or a function of the mind. The brain and the mind are not the same. Popularly, we define learning as a mind function. Learning as a task of the mind is often measured in terms of repeating a task. So, if an educator presents material that a learner is able to give back to the educator, then the assumption is that the student has learned. Examples of this type of learning is asking students to read a passage or listen to a teacher and then fill in the blanks or write what the teacher said. This assumes that learning is a mirror of teaching, an input-output system. Similarly, if a person drives a particular GPS route and remembers how to drive home without the GPS, most of us assume that the person has “learned” the route. There are several factors to consider in both examples. The time between the item to remember and what is remembered makes a difference. Short term memory (STM) varies from a few seconds to a few weeks, depending in part how often the material is rehearsed. Secondly, the imitation of a task is different from explaining the material in the student’s own words. This is where we need to examine what the brain really does during different tasks. Using a mind definition of learning affects how we look at unsuccessful learning. For example, forgetting something "that was learned” is viewed as needing more practice or rehearsal with this definition. Students who forget what was presented in lecture are told they didn’t study sufficiently. Using a mind definition of learning, students who have difficulty “retaining” material are often said to be off-task, under motivated, under achieving, uninterested in school, not focused, sometimes labeled with diagnostic labels such as cognitively impaired, etc. These labels refer to an assumption that the mind is doing what it needs to do to show learning.

Let’s look at how we view learning using an integration of what we know about the brain, the mind, and how language interacts between the brain and the mind. Definitionally, the Central Nervous System (CNS) consists of the brain and spinal cord while the receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) are part of the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). The PNS brings the various physical properties of light and sound into the human body and then the CNS begins the processing. This processing involves the ability of cells (especially neurons) to pass on the input (ascending) in a meaningful form through pathways (brain stem) to the processing of meaningful input while inhibiting non-meaningful input, eventually arriving at the cerebral cortex. Such activity continues to excite cells in a meaningful way to form neuro-semantic circuits and neuro-semantic networks while inhibiting the non-meaningful input. When the circuits are interconnected, ventrally and dorsally, across the regions of the brain, images are formed, also known as concepts. Now, these interconnections among cellular networks can be given as oral language, signed language, written language, also known as Semantic Memory. Semantic memory lasts much longer than STM and involves the highest level of learning.

In summary, using the NsLLT (Neuro-semantic Language Learning Theory) definition of learning: 1) meaningful sensory features are processed through receptors; 2) those meaningful features form patterns that can be imitated or rehearsed and offered later as perceptual patterns (STM); 3) excitation of meaningful brain stem pathways results in neurons interconnecting in layers of cerebral cortex to form neuro-semantic circuits forming images (concepts); 4) these neuro-semantic circuits interconnect to form neuro-semantic networks distributed and consolidated across regions of the brain in both hemispheres. Long term memory or learning is semantic memory.