All Cognitive and Observational Learning

Learning that happens without direct reinforcement of the learner's own behavior, through exploring surroundings, working out a solution, or watching what others do and what happens to them. It covers latent learning, insight learning, vicarious conditioning and vicarious reinforcement, and the neural systems proposed to underlie learning by observation. A phenomenon belongs here when its cited article describes knowledge or skill gained by thinking, observing or imitating rather than by being rewarded or punished directly. Associative effects of conditioning belong in the conditioning groups instead. Where researchers disagree about whether an effect needs a cognitive or a purely associative explanation, the member page says so.