Bottom-Up Learning and Top-Down Learning

Synonyms

Bottom-up learning is also known as implicit-to-explicit explicitation; Top-down learning is also known as explicit-to-implicit implicitation (or assimilation)

Definition

Bottom-up learning refers to learning implicit knowledge first and then learning explicit knowledge on that basis (i.e., through “extracting” implicit knowledge).

Top-down learning refers to learning explicit knowledge first and then learning implicit knowledge on that basis (i.e., assimilating explicit knowledge into an implicit form).

Theoretical Background

The idea of two systems in the human mind (implicit and explicit) that are rather separate for representing or learning different types of knowledge or skills can be traced back to early work in psychology, for example, on classical and instrumental conditioning (without subjective conscious awareness) and so on.

In particular, Arthur Reber demonstrated very early on (in the 1970s and 1980s) that subjects could memorize letter strings that followed...