Bloom's group deduced that there were three basic and discernible types of learning. Although some of Bloom's work has been updated or changed over the last fifty years, these remain the same. They are: cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning. Often they are subtitled as: knowledge, attitude and skills. The cognitive is focused around mental processes and the affective is a category based around emotional intelligence. The psychomotor group details physical aptitude and coordination. Each was further broken down into subcategories, with the cognitive most often referred to in an educational setting. Each subcategory increases in difficulty as it progresses.
The two first and most basic subcategories are knowledge and comprehension. Knowledge describes basic memory functions and recall of information. Examples, according to the NW link website run by Don Clark, include: "[To] Recite a policy [or] Quote prices from memory to a customer." Comprehension, on the other hand, is a more advanced process that involves basic understanding or translation of knowledge. Translating, explaining and putting something in one's own words are all acts of comprehension.
Application is a way of putting basic-level functions (knowledge and comprehension) to use in new or spontaneous ways. It involves taking abstract concepts and putting them to use in a real situation. Applying a theory or lesson to a real world problem is an example of application. Analysis is an advanced form of comprehension, where a person is able to separate groups of facts into processable components or categorizations. Understanding organization and objective versus subjective reasoning are keys to analysis.
Synthesis and evaluation are the two most advanced forms of cognitive processes, according to Bloom. Synthesis involves creative or artistic processes that allow people to take the four previous levels of cognition and use them to create something new or original from existing parts or knowledge. Creating organization is an example of the synthesis process. Evaluation is often described as the ability to rationalize or make judgments on given information or situations. Deciding whether a set of beliefs or plans is logical and useful is an example of evaluation.