"learned" how to respond successfully

In a baby, just learning to use its muscles, the correc­tion of the hand in reaching for a rattle is very obvious. The baby has little "stored information" to draw upon. Its hand zigzags back and forth and gropes obviously as it reaches. It is characteristic of all learning that as learn­ing takes place, correction becomes more and more re­fined. We see this in a person just learning to drive a car, who "over-corrects" and zigzags back and forth across the street.

Once, however, a correct or "successful response" has been accomplished—it is "remembered" for future use. The automatic mechanism then duplicates this successful response on future trials. It has "learned" how to respond successfully. It "remembers" its successes, forgets its failures, and repeats the successful action without any fur­ther conscious "thought"—or as a habit.