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The phenomenon of greater improvement in speed of learning as one's experience with learning increases.

When people try to learn a new behavior, the first attempts are often not very successful. After a time, however, they seem to get the idea of the behavior and the pace of learning increases. This phenomenon of greater improvement in speed of learning is called learning-to-learn (LTL). There are two general reasons for the existence of LTL. First, negative transfer diminishes. When people have learned to do something, they have often developed schemas or learning sets, that is, ways to approach those tasks. When a new behavior is required, old approaches that may be irrelevant or that may get in the way must be discarded. Learning becomes easier when irrelevant or distracting behaviors disappear. Second, there may be positive transfer of previous knowledge that might be usefully applied to the...