When people think about the elements of learning, they rarely think about emotion, yet emotion plays a powerful role in how we learn. For example, emotion colors how we perceive a thing. It is easier to memorize the names of desserts than the names of chemical compounds because we enjoy dessert more. Likewise, the sensation of seeing or hearing an object can be shaped by how we interpret the sensation ("Perceptual Processes," n.d.). Emotional learning makes a deeper impression on us than ordinary learning with no emotional component, because our emotions are "where we live," while facts are merely information. Emotions are more personally relevant to us, more impacting, and more tied to the deeper part of our personality. Moreover, emotional memory is more profound, longer-lasting, and substantially different from ordinary memory that lacks an emotional component. This paper will examine the mechanisms and effects of emotional learning. Emotional learning's unique characteristics, advantages, and implications will be detailed.
LaBar and Cabeza (2006, p. 54) state that "Emotional memories constitute the core of our personal history." They explain that the way "emotion enhances or disrupts memory" has long been the object of theory among philosophers and psychologists and that Francis Bacon even included strong emotion as one of six "lesser forms of aids to the memory" (LaBar & Cabeza, 2006, p 54).
The amygdala is the portion of the brain that stores the data acquired through emotional learning, and Dr. Antonio Damasio, a neurologist at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, asserts that the amygdala(and hence, emotional learning(are essential for the making of sound decisions (Goleman, 2006, p. 28). Emotional intelligence authority Daniel Goleman (2006, p. 28), in discussing Dr. Damasio's work, reports that patients whose brains have been damaged in the region of the amygdala retain all of the...