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Cumulative Learning
For Cumulative Learning in artificial intelligence, see Multi-task learning

Cumulative learning is the cognitive process by which we accumulate knowledge and abilities that serve as building blocks for subsequent cognitive development. This theory serves as an alternative approach to maturational theories such as the model proposed by Jean Piaget concerning intellectual and learning development.

Theory

American psychologist Robert M. Gagne first introduced cumulative learning theory in 1968 with the proposition that intellectual skills can be broken down into simpler skills. He cited how new learning depends on the combination of acquired and recalled learned entities. In a later explanation, Gagne stated that "there is a specifiable minimal prerequisite for each new learning task," and that if the learner cannot recall this capability, learning a new task is not possible.

According to Gagne, the cumulative learning theory is better than the maturational model because of the focus on the hierarchies of capabilities. In this framework, instead of the content and concepts of the task, the learning hierarchies address intellectual skills and strategies. He demonstrated this in the case of children's performance on conservation tasks over time.

A criticism cites that cumulative learning theory is inadequate as a general theory of mental development because it is not sufficiently developed in such a way that it permits empirical tests of it.

Application

A very simple example is the saying 'you can't run before you can walk'; the procedural memory built while learning to walk is necessary before one can start to learn to run. Pronouncing words is impossible without first learning to pronounce the vowels and consonants that make them up (hence babies' babbling).

This is an essential cognitive capacity, allowing prior development to produce new foundations for further cognitive development. Cumulative learning consolidates the knowledge one has obtained through experiences, allowing it to be reproduced and exploited for subsequent learning situations through cumulative interaction between prior knowledge and new information.

Arguably, all learning is cumulative learning, as all learning depends on previous learning (except skills that are innate, such as breathing, swallowing, gripping etc.).