Typically, the go and no-go stimuli are shown as part of a rapid stream of stimuli e. A recent study investigated the interaction between the processing of emotional words and response inhibition Goldstein et al. Response inhibition following negative words e. Interestingly, this region was not recruited by negative valence or inhibitory task demands per se ; instead, the dorsolateral cortex was sensitive to the explicit interaction between behavioral inhibition and the processing of negatively valenced words.
Although this short review focuses on the impact of emotional content on cognitive functions, here we briefly discuss another important line of studies that has investigated cognitive-emotional interactions, namely, cognitive emotion regulation Ochsner and Gross, ; Ochsner and Gross, Reappraisal appears to depend upon interactions between prefrontal and cingulate regions that are frequently implicated in cognitive control and systems like the amygdala and insula that have been implicated in emotional responding.
Interestingly, having the goal to think about stimuli in ways that maintain or increase emotion may boost amygdala activity whereas having the goal to decrease emotion may diminish it. Although much of the work on the cognitive regulation of emotion has relied on a relatively strict separation between cognition and emotion, which are in this context viewed as engaged in tug-of-war for the control of behavior, this framework is likely overly simplistic.
As proposed by Ochsner and Gross , a more fruitful approach will entail developing an integrated framework for specifying what combinations of interacting subsystems are involved in emotional responding, as individuals exert varying degrees and types of regulatory control over their emotions.
In attempting to understand the relationship between emotion and cognition, it is important to consider anatomical information. Advances in our understanding of brain connectivity suggest that a given brain region is only a few synapses away from every other brain region Sporns et al.
Indeed, it appears that the brain is configured according to a small-world topology in which the path length between nodes is small — typically, cortical areas are connected directly or via just one or two intermediate areas Hilgetag et al. Thus, a careful consideration of brain connectivity is informative in understanding potential cognitive-emotional interactions. It is also instructive to consider the connectivity of the hypothalamus Risold et al.
In particular, via its descending connections that innervate brainstem motor systems, this structure is thought to play a key role in the implementation of goal-directed behaviors. Hypothalamic signals also can be conveyed to the cortex, mostly by way of the thalamus. Critically, prefrontal cortical territories project directly to the hypothalamus.
Thus, the hypothalamus appears to be organized in such a way that it can generate both relatively reflexive behaviors and behaviors that are voluntarily triggered by inputs from the cerebral cortex Swanson, Overall, this structure appears to be connected with all levels of the nervous system , including the neocortex Swanson, , enabling important hypothalamic regulatory signals to have widespread effects on the brain. It is also important to consider the role of the ascending systems.
For instance, the basal nucleus of Maynert is a major part of the so-called magnocellular basal forebrain system Heimer and Van Hoesen, The projections from this system reach all parts of the cortical mantle Heimer and Van Hoesen, , and are involved in cortical plasticity in sensory cortex in the context of classical conditioning Weinberger, , in addition to arousal and attention mechanisms see citations in Sarter and Bruno, ; Heimer and Van Hoesen, In particular, basal forebrain corticopetal cholinergic projections appear to be crucial for diverse attentional functions, including sustained, selective, and divided attention Sarter and Bruno, ; Sarter et al.
Of importance in the present context, the basal forebrain receives both cortical and amygdala inputs for citations, see Sarter and Bruno, Notably, recent anatomical evidence suggests the existence of specific topographically organized prefrontal-basal forebrain-prefrontal loops Zaborszky et al. Such loops provide a direct substrate for cognitive-emotional integration, for example by allowing amygdala signals to be broadcast widely, including to frontoparietal regions known to be important for the control of attention.
More generally, the overall anatomical arrangement of the basal forebrain may involve multiple functional-anatomical macrosystems Alheid and Heimer, ; Zahm, with wide-ranging effects on brain computations and important clinical implications Alheid and Heimer, ; Sarter and Bruno, In summary, the picture that emerges from anatomical connectivity data suggests a remarkable potential for integration of information.
Historically, emotion and cognition have been viewed as separate entities. One factor that may have contributed to this separation in the past century is methodological. For instance, data arising from single-unit or lesion studies usually allow the researcher to only derive conclusions concerning the specific areas being targeted. Research in the past two decades suggests, however, that such a view is likely deficient and that, in order to understand how complex behaviors are carried out in the brain, an understanding of the interactions between the two may be indispensable.
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No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. This article is part of the Research Topic The neurobiology of emotion-cognition interactions View all 35 Articles. The influence of emotions on cognitive control: feelings and beliefs—where do they meet?
Katia M. Paulus 1,3. Introduction How do feeling and thinking influence one another? Models of Inhibitory Control Cognitive Models of Inhibitory Control Much of the theoretical literature on inhibitory control focuses on the contrast between action and inhibition and different aspects of inhibition such as attentional and behavioral inhibition. For example, if you are trying to write down a telephone number from an answer phone message, but it is being read quickly, you might feel uptight and frustrated, which then affects how fast you can write.
In contrast, if you are calm and happy or there is something to make you feel at ease, writing the number down would probably seem less difficult. Negative and positive affect have different implications for Cognition ; negative affect limits thinking, but focuses our attention, while positive affect allows us to think more broadly, which enables Creativity and supports problem-solving.
Therefore, when you want people to concentrate intently, but there is no call for creative thinking, you might induce some negative affect by using warnings or alerts, for example, or using different types of audio. However, if you want your users to tackle complex problems, develop new strategies or simply think creatively, you might use design features which induce positive affect.
Some computer games use this knowledge to good effect for designing the user experience, by setting the background music to something dramatic and ominous when the player enters an area where enemies are present thus, creating anxiety and helping the player to focus on the bad guys , and by using calming and gentle music when the player enters an area where they need to solve a puzzle thus, supporting their creative thinking.
Copyright terms and licence: CC0. Negative affect focuses our attention e. Emotion is always passing judgments, presenting you with immediate information about the world: here is potential danger, there is potential comfort; this is nice, that bad. One of the ways by which emotions work is through neurochemicals that bathe particular brain centers and modify Perception , decision making, and behavior. These neurochemicals change the parameters of thought.
As the cognitive and affective systems are in charge of our emotional responses, we must consider how we can influence these systems in a positive way to increase the likelihood customers will not only enjoy our products but, first of all, consider buying them. We are still in the early stages of applying our understanding of cognition and affect to user and customer decision-making, but from the research conducted so far, there are some compelling findings. Alice M.
Isen, a researcher at Cornell University carried out a number of studies investigating how positive affect can influence decision-making. She found the effect of positive affect varied according to the importance or meaningfulness attached to a task. In one such study, Alice M.
Isen and Barbara Means, researchers at the time in the University of Maryland , asked consumers to make an informed choice between six hypothetical cars. They found consumers in whom positive affects had been induced prior to the decision-making process were noticeably more efficient in their task processing.
Superior performance was judged on the basis of the speed decisions were made, the efficiency of the search process, and the number of dimensions that positive affect consumers eliminated due to their low importance to the final decision. The researchers concluded the car-choice findings indicate people are less confused by large numbers of possible options following positive affect, which allows them to gather the necessary information to direct their final decision with greater speed.
A number of studies have shown increased levels of generosity and helpfulness following some form of positive affect. Furthermore, research has shown facilitation of Creativity , cognitive flexibility, innovative responding and openness to information following positive affect. Lisa Aspinwall and Richard Tedeschi, researchers at the University of Utah and North Carolina , among other researchers, found positive affect can facilitate coping processes and health-promoting behavior.
Thus, BLA activation results from emotionally arousing events, which appear to modulate memory storage-related regions that influence long-term memories McGaugh, Memory consolidation is a part of the encoding and retention processes where labile memories of newly learned information become stabilized and are strengthened to form long-lasting memories McGaugh, Consequently, during emotional processing, direct projections from the amygdala to sensory cortices enhance attentional mechanism might also allow the parallel processing of the attentional fronto-parietal system Vuilleumier, This suggests that amygdala activation is associated with enhanced attention and is a part of how salience enhances information retention.
Thus, there is evidence that the consolidation of new memory that is stimulated by emotionally arousing experiences can be enhanced through the modulating effects of the release of stress hormones and stress-activated neurotransmitters associated with amygdala activation.
However, stress and emotion do not always induce strong memories of new information. Indeed, they have also been reported to inhibit WM and LTM under certain conditions related to mood and chronic stress Schwabe and Wolf, Consequently, understanding, managing, and regulating emotion is critical to the development of enhanced learning programs informed by the significant impacts of learning and memory under different types of stress Vogel and Schwabe, Moreover, it is thought to act as a control center for selective attention Squire et al.
Its involvement in WM and emotional processing are intimately connected with the MTL structures that decisively affect LTM encoding and retrieval Blumenfeld and Ranganath, in addition to self-referential processing Northoff et al. Specifically, increased mPFC activation has been noted during reappraisal and is associated with the suppressed subjective experience of negative emotions. Furthermore, an fMRI study revealed concurrent activation levels of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex dmPFC with emotional valence when processing emotional stimuli: i activation was associated with positive valence, and ii deactivation was associated with negative valence Heinzel et al.
These findings suggested reciprocal interactions between cognitive and emotional processing between dorsal and lateral neural systems when processing emotional and cognitive tasking demands Bartolic et al.
Other studies reported strong cognition-emotion interactions in the lateral prefrontal cortex with increased activity in the DLPFC, which plays a key role in top-down modulation of emotional processing Northoff et al.
This indicates increased attentional control of regulatory mechanisms that process emotional content. For instance, one study reported that cognitive task appeared to require active retention in WM, noting that the process was influenced by emotional stimuli when subjects were instructed to remember emotional valence information over a delay period Perlstein et al.
This could be interpreted as increased WM-related activity when processing positive emotional stimuli, thus leading to positive emotion maintenance of stimulus representation in WM. Furthermore, they observed that the DLPFC contributed to increased LTM performance linked to stronger item associations and greater organization of information in WM during pleasant compared to unpleasant emotion Blumenfeld and Ranganath, Certain characteristics of emotional content were found to mediate the encoding and retrieval of selective information by leading high levels of attention, distinctiveness, and information organization that enhanced recall for emotional aspects of complex events Talmi, Hence, this direction of additional attention to emotional information appears to enhance LTM with the pronounced effects deriving from positive emotions compared with negative emotions.
Effects of emotion on memory was also investigated using immediate after 20 s and delayed after 50 min testing paradigm, has shown that better recall for emotionally negative stimuli during immediate test compared to delayed test because of attentional allocation for encoding while the delayed test demonstrated that the role of amygdala in modulating memory consolidation of emotional stimuli.
Because selective attention drives priority assignment for emotional material Talmi et al. Meanwhile, the distinctiveness and organization of information can improve memory because unique attributes and inter-item elaboration during encoding serve as retrieval cues, which then lead to high possibilities for correct recall Erk et al.
Consistent findings were also reported by Dolcos et al. Table 1 summarizes cognitive-emotional functions associated with each sub-region of the PFC and corresponding Brodmann areas.
Taken together, these findings indicate that the PFC is a key component in both cognitive and emotional processing for successful LTM formation and retrieval. TABLE 1.
The prefrontal cortex PFC sub-regions, corresponding Brodmann areas, and associated cognitive-emotional functions. As discussed above, evidence indicates the neural mechanisms underlying the emotional processing of valence and arousal involve the amygdala and PFC, where the amygdala responds to emotionally arousing stimuli and the PFC responds to the emotional valence of non-arousing stimuli. We have thus far primarily discussed studies examining neural mechanisms underlying the processing of emotional images.
However, recent neuroimaging studies have investigated a wider range of visual emotional stimuli. These include words Sharot et al.
These studies provided useful supplemental information for future research on emotional effects of educational multimedia content combination of words and pictures , an increasingly widespread channel for teaching and learning.
Subjects were instructed to rate each stimulus as animate or inanimate and common or uncommon. The results revealed the activation of the amygdala in response to positive and negative valence valence-independent for pictures and words. A lateralization effect was observed in the amygdala when processing different emotional stimuli types. In addition, participants were more sensitive to emotional pictures than to emotional words.
The mPFC responded more rigorously during the processing of positive than to that of negative stimuli, while the VLPFC responded more to negative stimuli. The researchers concluded that arousal-related responses occur in the amygdala, dmPFC, vmPFC, anterior temporal lobe and temporo-occipital junction, whereas valence-dependent responses were associated with the lateral PFC for negative stimuli and the mPFC for positive stimuli. Hence, these factors should be considered in future studies.
Event-related potentials ERPs were used to investigate the modality effects deriving from emotional words and facial expressions as stimuli in healthy, native German speakers Schacht and Sommer, a. German verbs or pseudo-words associated with positive, negative or neutral emotions were used, in addition to happy vs. The results revealed that negative posterior ERPs were evoked in the temporo-parieto-occipital regions, while enhanced positive ERPs were evoked in the fronto-central regions positive verbs and happy faces when compared with neutral and negative stimuli.
These findings were in agreement with the previous findings Schupp et al. While the same neuronal mechanisms appear to be involved in response to both emotional stimuli types, latency differences were also reported with faster responses to facial stimuli than to words, likely owing to more direct access to neural circuits-approximately ms for happy faces compared to ms for positive verbs Schacht and Sommer, a.
Moreover, augmented responses observed in the later positive complex LPP , i. Khairudin et al. All stimuli were categorized as positive, negative or neutral, and displayed in two different trials. Results revealed that better memory for emotional images than for emotional words. Moreover, a recognition test demonstrated that positive emotional content was remembered better than negative emotional content.
Researchers concluded that emotional valence significantly impacts memory and that negative valence suppressed the explicit memory. Another study by Khairudin et al. The results revealed that emotion substantially influences memory performance and that both positive and negative words were remembered more effectively than neutral words.
Moreover, emotional words were remembered better in recognition vs. Another group studied the impacts of emotion on memory using emotional film clips that varied in emotion with neutral, positive, negative and arousing contents Anderson and Shimamura, A subjective experiment for word recall and context recognition revealed that memory, for words associated with emotionally negative film clips, was lower than emotionally neutral, positive and arousing films.
Moreover, emotionally arousing film clips were associated with enhanced context recognition memory but not during a free word recall test. Therefore, clarifying whether emotional stimuli enhance recognition memory or recall memory requires further investigation, as it appears that emotional information was better remembered for recognition compared to recall.
In brief, greater attentional resource toward emotional pictures with large late positive waves of LPP in the posterior region, the amygdala responds to emotional stimuli both words and pictures independent on its valence, leading to enhanced memory.
The brain regions associated with cognitive-emotional interactions can be studied with different functional neuroimaging techniques fMRI, PET, and fNIRS to examine hemodynamic responses indirect measurement. EEG is used to measure brain electrical dynamics direct measurement associated with responses to cognitive and emotional tasks. Each technique has particular strengths and weaknesses, as described below. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is a widely used functional neuroimaging tool for mapping of brain activation as it provides a high spatial resolution a few millimeters.
Dolcos et al. The researchers concluded that successful retrieval of emotional pictures involved greater activation of the amygdala as well as the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus than that of neutral pictures. Both the amygdala and hippocampus were rigorously activated during recollection compared to familiarity recognition, whereas no differences were found in the entorhinal cortex for either recollection or familiarity recognition.
Moreover, a study investigates motivation effect low vs. Thus, Shigemune et al. Taken together, these findings indicate that the amygdala and MTL have important roles in the recollection of emotional and motivational memory. Hence, fMRI has clearly revealed interactions between cognitive and emotional neural networks during information processing, particularly in response to emotion-related content.
Such interactions appear to modulate memory consolidation while also mediating encoding and retrieval processes that underlie successful LTM formation and memory recall. Although fMRI is widely used, it poses several limitations such as poor temporal resolution, expensive setup costs, plus the difficulty of having a subject hold still during the procedure in an electromagnetically shielded room immobility.
Furthermore, fMRI is slightly more metabolically sluggish, as BOLD signal exhibits an initial dip, where the increase of subsequent signal is delayed by 2—3 s and it takes approximately 6—12 s to reach to a peak value that reflects the neural responses elicited by a stimulus Logothetis et al.
This means that fMRI having a coarse temporal resolution several seconds when compared with electrophysiological techniques a few milliseconds and also not a great technique for visualizing subcortical regions mesencephalon and brainstem due to metabolically sluggish compared to PET. Positron emission tomography is another functional neuroimaging tool that maps CNS physiology and neural activation by measuring glucose metabolism or regional cerebral blood flow rCBF.
This technique identifies different neural networks involving pleasant, unpleasant and neutral emotions Lane et al. It thus far appears that increased rCBF in the mPFC, thalamus, hypothalamus, and midbrain associated with pleasant and unpleasant emotional processing, while unpleasant emotions are more specifically associated with the bilateral OTC, cerebellum, left parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, and amygdala; moreover, the caudate nucleus is associated with pleasant emotions.
Using PET scanning demonstrated that emotional information enhances visual memory recognition via interactions between perception and memory systems, specifically with greater activation of the lingual gyrus for visual stimuli Taylor et al. The results also showed that strong negative emotional valence appeared to enhance the processing of early sensory input.
Moreover, differences in neural activation appeared in the left amygdaloid complex AC during encoding, while the right PFC and mPFC responded during recognition memory. Similarly, Tataranni et al. Hunger stimulated increased rCBF uptake in multiple regions including the hypothalamus, insular cortex, limbic and paralimbic regions anterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal and hippocampal formation, the anterior temporal and posterior orbitofrontal cortex , as well as the thalamus, caudate, precuneus, putamen, and cerebellum.
PET scanning has also been used for neuroanatomical mapping of emotions Davidson and Irwin, , emotional processing Choudhary et al. Although PET scanning has a relatively good spatial resolution for both the brain and bodily functions, it is costly and yields lower temporal resolution than does EEG and is invasive as opposed to fMRI.
Moreover, PET tends to show better activation of more ancient brain regions in the mesencephalon and brainstem when compared to fMRI. Hence, it is generally reserved for the clinical diagnoses of cancers, neurological diseases processes e.
Electroencephalography obtains high temporal resolution in milliseconds, portable, less expensive, and non-invasive techniques by attaching scalp electrodes to record brain electrical activity. The technique offers a comprehensive range of feature extraction and analysis methods, including power spectral analysis, EEG coherence, phase delay, and cross-power analysis.
This finding was later supported by the revelation of increased theta activity in the right frontal Friese et al. The theta waves are generated through an interaction between the entorhinal cortex, the Schaffer collateral CA3 region and the pyramidal cell dendrites both CA3 and CA1 regions that result in a synaptic modification underlie learning and memory.
Thus, theta oscillation is thought to be associated with the encoding of new memories. Electrophysiological responses showed increased alpha-band activity in the right vs. EEG alpha wave power is inversely related to cortical activity, that is, a lower alpha power associated with higher activity inhibition. Another study reported greater alpha activity in the left frontal region less left frontal alpha power was associated with approach motivation, while the greater alpha activity in right frontal less right frontal alpha power was associated with withdrawal motivation Harmon-Jones et al.
However, anger is associated with approach motivation but negative valence state appeared to have a greater left frontal activity compared with positively valenced approach motivation happiness Harmon-Jones and Gable, Because of there is a strong inverse association between alpha and the fronto-parietal network, which increase of alpha activity associated with a decrease fronto-parietal activity that reflects the executive control mechanism inhibits interference from irrelevant emotional distractors.
During an emotionally positive experience, another study reported significantly increased EEG theta-alpha coherence between prefrontal and posterior parietal regions Aftanas and Golocheikine, They concluded the change was associated with heightened attention in association with improved performance in memory and emotional processing.
Thus, we have a number of EEG investigations of left and right hemispheric activity while processing positive pleasant and negative unpleasant stimuli that revealed differences in regional electrophysiological activation. Thus, scalp EEG unable to measure activation much below cortex owing to the distortion of scalp potentials where different volume conduction effects of the cortex, dura mater, skull, and scalp resulting in imprecise localization of the electromagnetic field patterns associated with neural current flow.
Subsequent studies have demonstrated that the EEG spatial resolution can be improved using high-resolution EEG high-density electrode arrays to increase spatial sampling with surface Laplacian estimation and cortical imaging details discussion of this area is beyond the scope of this review, see Nunez et al. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy is an emerging and relatively low-cost imaging technique that is also portable and non-invasive.
It can be used to map the hemodynamic responses associated with brain activation. This technology measures cerebral changes in the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin oxy-Hb vs. It is limited to visualizations of cortical activity compared to the subcortical regions, and findings only imply increased brain activity associated with increased glucose and oxygen consumption. Elevations in cerebral blood flow and oxygen delivery exceed quo oxygen consumption, thereby enabling changes in local cerebral blood oxygenation to be measured by optic penetration.
The number of studies that have implemented this investigative technique are associated with task performance Villringer et al.
One study used fNIRS to examine the relationship between subjective happiness and emotional changes Oonishi et al. The results revealed that the level of subjective happiness influenced the pattern of left-right PFC activation during the emotion-related task, showing increased oxy-Hb in the left PFC when viewing pleasant pictures, and increased oxy-Hb in the right PFC when viewing unpleasant pictures.
This inconsistent finding of frontal hemispheric asymmetric might result from the comparison of state-related changes rather than baseline levels of asymmetric. Thus, several issues should take into consideration: i methodological issues to assess hemispheric asymmetry, including requires repeat measures of anterior asymmetry for at least two sessions, stimulus content should comprise both positive valence and negative valence while maintaining at a similar level of arousal and with a baseline resting condition, appropriate selection of reference electrode and individual differences, etc; and ii conceptual issues is related to the fact that prefrontal cortex is an anatomically and functionally heterogeneous and complex region interacts with other cortical and subcortical structures during emotional processing Davidson, This was done by presenting emotional IAPS pictures for 5.
The results revealed a significantly greater increase in oxy-HB in the mPFC and left superior frontal gyrus in response to negative pictures compared with neutral pictures. Meanwhile, no significant hemodynamic changes were observed during image presentation and the n -back task, indicating the need for further investigation. The preceding section described neuroimaging techniques used to examine brain responses to emotional stimuli during WM processing leading to LTM.
This section presents six key factors that are recommended for consideration in the experimental design and appropriate protocol. A number of studies have reported numerous influences in addition to a range of individual differences in emotional processing. These include personality traits Montag and Panksepp, , intellectual ability Brackett et al. Moreover, sex hormones and personality traits e.
Appropriate screening with psychological testing as well as balancing experimental cohorts in terms of sex can help reduce spurious results owing to individual differences. Studies have also shown that older adults are associated with the greater familiarity with psychological stress and emotional experiences, thus causing positivity biases in emotional processing and better emotional control than in younger adults Urry and Gross, ; Allard and Kensinger, Consequently, the age of participants in a sample population should be considered for both cognitive and emotional studies.
The selection of emotional stimuli for experimental studies is generally divided into two streams: 1 discrete emotional, and 2 dimensional emotions of valence, arousal, dominance and familiarity Russell, ; Barrett, Appropriate selection of emotional stimuli is another important consideration that ensures experimental tasks are suitable for the investigation of emotional processing in learning and memory.
Furthermore, the type of stimulus determines stimulus presentation duration, especially for experimental tasks involving the induction of emotions.
There are numerous self-assessment techniques used to measure individual emotional states Bradley and Lang, The SAM is a non-verbal pictorial assessment technique directly measures emotional responses to emotional stimuli for valence, arousal, and dominance. The SD scale consists of a set of bipolar adjective pairs for the subjective rating of image stimuli. If a study does not seek to assess distinct emotional states but rather involves the assessment of two primary dimensions of emotion positive and negative valence , then the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule PANAS is a recommended method Watson et al.
Thus, selection of the most appropriate self-assessment technique is an important part of the experimental design but can also become an overwhelming task.
Although functional neuroimaging works to identify the neural correlates of emotional states, technologies such as deep brain stimulation DBS and connectivity maps might provide new opportunities to seek understanding of emotions and its corresponding psychological responses. The neuroscience of cognition and emotion requires appropriate task designs to accomplish specific study objectives Amin and Malik, Environmental factors, ethical issues, memory paradigms, cognitive task difficulty, and emotional induction task intensity must be considered for this.
Numerous neuroimaging studies cited thus far have indicated that emotions influence memory processes, to include memory encoding, memory consolidation, and memory retrieval.
Emotional attentional and motivational components might explain why emotional content exhibits privileged information processing. Significant emotional modulation affects memory consolidation in the amygdala, and emotional content also appears to mediate memory encoding and retrieval in the PFC, leading to slow rates of memory lapse accompanied by the accurate recall.
Moreover, cognitive and emotional interactions also appear to modulate additional memory-related CNS regions, such as the frontal, posterior parietal and visual cortices. The latter are involved in attentional control, association information, and the processing of visual information, respectively. Neuroimaging findings also indicate the involvement of the PFC in emotional processing by indirectly influencing WM and semantic memory Kensinger and Corkin, This is reflected by the involvement of the DLPFC in WM and the role played by VLPFC in semantic processing, both of which have been found to enhance or impair semantic encoding task performance when emotion is involved.
Various parts of the lateral PFC ventrolateral, dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortical regions are suspected of having key roles that support memory retrieval Simons and Spiers, All of these findings suggest that PFC-MTL interactions underlie effective semantic memory encoding and thus strategically mediate information processing with increased transfer to the hippocampus, consequently enhancing memory retrieval.
Accordingly, learning strategies that emphasize emotional factors are more likely to result in long-term knowledge retention. This consideration is potentially useful in the design of educational materials for academic settings and informed intelligent tutoring systems.
Based on numerous previous findings, future research might take emotional factors more seriously and more explicitly in terms of their potential impact on learning. By monitoring the emotional state of students, the utilization of scientifically derived knowledge of stimulus selection can be particularly useful in the identification of emotional states that advance learning performance and outcomes in educational settings.
In addition, the identification of emotional impact on learning and memory potentially has direct implications for healthy individuals as well as patients with psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, mania, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD Panksepp, a. Depression and anxiety are also associated with negative emotions such as hopelessness, anxiety, apathy, attention deficit, lack of motivation, and motor and mental insufficiencies.
Likewise, neuroscience studies report that decreased activation of the dorsal limbic the anterior and posterior cingulate as well as in the prefrontal, premotor and parietal cortices causes attentional disturbance, while increased neural activation in the ventral paralimbic region the subgenual cingulate, anterior insula, hypothalamus and caudate is associated with emotional and motivational disorders Mayberg, Substantial evidence has established that emotional events are remembered more clearly, accurately and for longer periods of time than are neutral events.
Emotional memory enhancement appears to involve the integration of cognitive and emotional neural networks, in which activation of the amygdala enhances the processing of emotionally arousing stimuli while also modulating enhanced memory consolidation along with other memory-related brain regions, particularly the amygdala, hippocampus, MTL, as well as the visual, frontal and parietal cortices. Similarly, activation of the PFC enhances cognitive functions, such as strategic and semantic processing that affect WM and also promote the establishment of LTM.
Previous studies have primarily used standardized emotional visual, or auditory stimuli such as pictures, words, facial expression, and film clips, often based on the IAPS, ANEW, and POFA databases for emotional pictures, words and facial expressions, respectively. Further studies have typically focused on the way individuals memorize intentional or incidental episodic memory paradigm emotional stimuli in controlled laboratory settings.
To our knowledge, there are few objective studies that employed brain-mapping techniques to examine semantic memory of learning materials using subject matter in the education context.
Furthermore, influences derived from emotional factors in human learning and memory remains unclear as to whether positive emotions facilitate learning or negative emotions impair learning and vice versa. Thus, several remaining questions should be addressed in future studies, including i the impact of emotion on semantic knowledge encoding and retrieval, ii psychological and physiological changes associated with semantic learning and memory, and iii the development of methods that incorporate emotional and motivational aspects that improve educational praxes, outcomes, and instruments.
The results of studies on emotion using educational learning materials can indeed provide beneficial information for informed designs of new educational courses that obtain more effective teaching and help establish better informed learning environments.
Moreover, the SEEKING system generates positive subjective emotional states-positive expectancy, enthusiastic exploration, and hopefulness, apparently, initiates learning and memory in the brain. CMT drafted this manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved this manuscript. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We gratefully thank Frontiers in Psychology, Specialty Section Emotion Sciences reviewers and the journal Associate Editor, for their helpful input and feedback on the content of this manuscript. Aftanas, L. Human anterior and frontal midline theta and lower alpha reflect emotionally positive state and internalized attention: high-resolution EEG investigation of meditation. Allard, E.
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