"apply to understanding" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a practice, idea, or method that is being used to gain a better comprehension of a certain concept. For example, "We are using a holistic approach to learning that applies to understanding cultures around the world."
Folk psychology is the conceptual structure that we spontaneously apply to understanding and predicting human behavior.
What lessons learned from professional development in other disciplines and K 12 settings apply to understanding experiences of biology faculty?
25, 26 This can apply to understanding the concerns (fear of reduction of human contact, of deskilling, and of new dependence on machines) raised by participants on robot use in eldercare.
We've found that the same mathematical metaphors that allow us to understand online social networks can also be applied to understanding the gene regulatory networks of cancer.
The results may help scientists understand how societal trends evolve and take hold, and researchers say the method could be applied to understanding other cultural traits.
A principle applied to understanding the UDHR's drafters' intentions and therefore the meaning of the Declarations' articles is a well-established one elsewhere in the interpretation of law.
Disturbance principles have traditionally been applied to understanding patterns of species diversity, but they can also be applied to understanding the broader concept of biodiversity.
Broad screening and bioinformatics/chemoinformatics have been applied to understanding off-target effects of GPCR ligands.
Our increasingly sophisticated methods for chemical analysis can be applied to understanding color use and unforeseen color change in artifacts.
Thus, organoid technology has been rapidly applied to understanding stem cell biology, organogenesis, and various human pathologies.
In categorization, these models have been applied to understanding how different dimensions are combined in making categorization decisions.
