Field Guide · Glossary
Latent learning
Learning scienceLearning that becomes apparent only later, after a break, without further practice in between.
How it works
It describes the common experience of a dog performing a skill better at the start of the next session than at the end of the last one. Sleep appears to be part of it: dogs who slept after a learning session recalled newly taught words better than dogs kept awake. The practical consequence is that ending a session while things are still going well tends to beat drilling until they improve, because the improvement often arrives during the gap rather than during the repetitions.
What it looks like
A dog spends ten minutes struggling with a new hand signal and the session ends without much progress. The following morning, the dog responds correctly on the second attempt, having done nothing in between.
Commonly confused with
- Fluency
- Latent learning describes improvement appearing after a gap. Fluency describes a behavior being fast and reliable. A dog can show latent learning on a behavior that is still nowhere near fluent.
Related terms