English

Alternative forms

• over-learn

Verb

overlearn ‎(third-person singular simple present overlearns, present participle overlearning, simple past and past participle overlearned or overlearnt)

1. To learn (something) more than is necessary; to study excessively, to take (something) too much to heart.
   • 2010, "An own goal on gay rights", The Economist, 14 Oct 2010:

     Why the rigmarole of a military survey before enacting a measure most Americans already favoured? Maybe he over-learned the lesson of the clobbering Bill Clinton got when he barged into this area right at the start of his presidency.

2. (psychology, education) To learn (something) to the point where responses become instinctive.
3. (modeling) Mostly when talking about neural networks, to learn a task to the point where responses actually start to degrade. Compare with overfit, in model tuning contexts.

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