Definition of learning
We start with a psychology-based definition of learning,which states that learning is a cognitive response to information acquisition that occurs via an individual’s experience that results in a detectable and consistent change in neurophysiology and/or behavior (Box 1). Movement intersects with this definition of learning in several key ways. First, movement will give rise to learning if the movement leads to acquisition of information by introducing an animal to a new environment or state. Second, the learned information can give rise to new movement decisions if the information acquired is used to change movement patterns. Lastly, learning can be about movement itself, for example, when an animal learns where and when to migrate by imitating conspecifics. Figure 1 depicts these connections among movement, information processing, the environment, and the internal states of the animal.
Although researchers can access cellular evidence for neurophysiological changes arising from information acquisition and storage directly via functional magnetic resonance imaging or similar methods (Marshet al. 2010), these approaches are impractical in studies of animals in the wild and most ecologically relevant evidence for learning comes from observing changes in behavior as a result of experience. Thus, although the definition of learning above does not strictly involve decision-making, the ecological implications of learning are often intimately tied to the decision-making process. In movement ecology, researchers deduce that learning has taken place by observing changes in decision making after experiences. Thus, discussions of learning in movement ecology often involve the decision-making process, so learning in the context of movement decisions is more like learning as defined in artificial intelligence: improved performance for a specific task as a result of prior experience. This definition, which we refer to as the task-based definition , differs from the psychological definition because it is directly tied to improvements in performance for a specific task based on experience (Box 1).