Explain Like I'm Five: How an Artificial Neural Network Learns

The learning ability of artificial neural networks ("ANNs") falls under the scientific area of machine learning. Machine learning is a generic term for the artificial generation of knowledge from experience. More specific, an ANN learns from historical examples and can generalize these after the learning phase by learning the patterns contained in the examples. In machine learning, there are three learning paradigms. These include supervised and unsupervised learning as well as reinforced learning.¹