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REVIEW
published: 24 August 2017

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454

Edited by:
Beatrice de Gelder,

Maastricht University, Netherlands

Reviewed by:
Douglas Watt,

Boston University School of Medicine,
United States

Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy,
Neurons Inc. and Singularity

University, Denmark

*Correspondence:
Aamir S. Malik

[email protected]

Specialty section:
This article was submitted to

Emotion Science,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 29 November 2016
Accepted: 10 August 2017
Published: 24 August 2017

Citation:
Tyng CM, Amin HU, Saad MNM and

Malik AS (2017) The Influences
of Emotion on Learning and Memory.

Front. Psychol. 8:1454.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454

The Influences of Emotion
on Learning and Memory
Chai M. Tyng, Hafeez U. Amin, Mohamad N. M. Saad and Aamir S. Malik*

Centre for Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research (CISIR), Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti
Teknologi Petronas, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia

Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including
perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has
a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of
attention as well as motivating action and behavior. This attentional and executive
control is intimately linked to learning processes, as intrinsically limited attentional
capacities are better focused on relevant information. Emotion also facilitates encoding
and helps retrieval of information efficiently. However, the effects of emotion on learning
and memory are not always univalent, as studies have reported that emotion either
enhances or impairs learning and long-term memory (LTM) retention, depending on
a range of factors. Recent neuroimaging findings have indicated that the amygdala
and prefrontal cortex cooperate with the medial temporal lobe in an integrated manner
that affords (i) the amygdala modulating memory consolidation; (ii) the prefrontal cortex
mediating memory encoding and formation; and (iii) the hippocampus for successful
learning and LTM retention. We also review the nested hierarchies of circular emotional
control and cognitive regulation (bottom-up and top-down influences) within the brain to
achieve optimal integration of emotional and cognitive processing. This review highlights
a basic evolutionary approach to emotion to understand the effects of emotion on
learning and memory and the functional roles played by various brain regions and
their mutual interactions in relation to emotional processing. We also summarize the
current state of knowledge on the impact of emotion on memory and map implications
for educational settings. In addition to elucidating the memory-enhancing effects of
emotion, neuroimaging findings extend our understanding of emotional influences on
learning and memory processes; this knowledge may be useful for the design of effective
educational curricula to provide a conducive learning environment for both traditional
“live” learning in classrooms and “virtual” learning through online-based educational
technologies.

Keywords: emotional valence, arousal, learning, memory, prefrontal cortex (PFC), medial temporal lobe (MTL),
amygdala, neuroimaging

INTRODUCTION

Emotional experiences are ubiquitous in nature and important and perhaps even critical in
academic settings, as emotion modulates virtually every aspect of cognition. Tests, examinations,
homework, and deadlines are associated with different emotional states that encompass frustration,
anxiety, and boredom. Even subject matter influences emotions that affect one’s ability to learn and

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remember. The usage of computer-based multimedia educational
technologies, such as intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) and
massive open online courses (MOOCs), which are gradually
replacing traditional face-to-face learning environments, is
increasing. This may induce various emotional experiences
in learners. Hence, emotional influences should be carefully
considered in educational courses design to maximize learner
engagement as well as improve learning and long-term retention
of the material (Shen et al., 2009). Numerous studies have
reported that human cognitive processes are affected by
emotions, including attention (Vuilleumier, 2005), learning and
memory (Phelps, 2004; Um et al., 2012), reasoning (Jung et al.,
2014), and problem-solving (Isen et al., 1987). These factors
are critical in educational domains because when students face
such difficulties, it defeats the purpose of schooling and can
potentially render it meaningless. Most importantly, emotional
stimuli appear to consume more attentional resources than non-
emotional stimuli (Schupp et al., 2007). Moreover, attentional
and motivational components of emotion have been linked to
heightened learning and memory (Pekrun, 1992; Seli et al., 2016).
Hence, emotional experiences/stimuli appear to be remembered
vividly and accurately, with great resilience over time.

Recent studies using functional neuroimaging techniques
detect and recognize human emotional states and have become
a topic of increasing research in cognitive neuroscience, affective
neuroscience, and educational psychology to optimize learning
and memory outcomes (Carew and Magsamen, 2010; Um
et al., 2012). Human emotions comprise complex interactions
of subjective feelings as well as physiological and behavioral
responses that are especially triggered by external stimuli,
which are subjectively perceived as “personally significant.”
Three different approaches are used to monitor the changes in
emotional states: (1) subjective approaches that assess subjective
feelings and experiences; (2) behavioral investigations of facial
expressions (Jack and Schyns, 2015), vocal expressions (Russell
et al., 2003), and gestural changes (Dael et al., 2012); and (3)
objective approaches via physiological responses that include
electrical and hemodynamic of the central nervous system
(CNS) activities (Vytal and Hamann, 2010) in addition to
autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses such as heart rate,
respiratory volume/rate, skin temperature, skin conductance
and blood volume pulses (Li and Chen, 2006). The CNS and
ANS physiological responses (brain vs. body organs) can be
objectively measured via neuroimaging and biosensors and are
more difficult to consciously conceal or manipulate compared
to subjective and behavioral responses. Although functional
neuroimaging enables us to identify brain regions of interest for
cognitive and emotional processing, it is difficult to comprehend
emotional influences on learning and memory retrieval without
a fundamental understanding of the brain’s inherent emotional
operating systems.

The aim of this current article was to highlight an evolutionary
approach to emotion, which may facilitate understanding of
the effects of emotion on learning and memory. We initially
present the terminology used in affective neuroscience studies,
describe the roles of emotion and motivation in learning
and memory, and outline the evolutionary framework and

the seven primary emotional system. This is followed by the
emotional-cognitive interactions in the various brain regions
that are intimately involved in emotion and memory systems.
This is performed to define the congruent interactions in
these regions are associated with long-term memory (LTM)
retention. We then discuss the emerging studies that further
our understanding of emotional effects deriving from different
modalities of emotional content. This is followed by a
discussion of four major functional neuroimaging techniques,
including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography
(EEG), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
We then present the important factors for consideration in
experimental design, followed by a description of psychiatric
disorders, such as depression and anxiety, which are emotionally
charged dysfunctions that are strongly detrimental to cognitive
performance. Our review ends with concluding remarks on the
current issues and future research possibilities with respect to the
efficient enhancement of educational practices and technologies.

EMOTIONS, MOODS, FEELINGS,
AFFECTS AND DRIVES

Subjective terms used in affective neuroscience include emotions,
moods, feelings, affects and drives. Although emotion has long
been studied, it bears no single definition. A review of 92
putative definitions and nine skeptical statements (Kleinginna
and Kleinginna, 1981) suggests a definition with a rather broad
consensus:

Emotions describe a complex set of interactions between
subjective and objective variables that are mediated by neural
and hormonal systems, which can (a) give rise to affective
experiences of emotional valence (pleasure-displeasure) and
emotional arousal (high-low activation/calming-arousing);
(b) generate cognitive processes such as emotionally relevant
perceptual affect, appraisals, labeling processes; (c) activate
widespread psychological and physiological changes to the
arousing conditions; and (d) motivate behavior that is often
but not always expressive, goal-directed and adaptive.

Although this definition may be adequate for everyday
purposes, it does not encompass some important aspects
of emotional systems such as how emotions operate to
create subjectively experienced feelings and how they control
personality dimensions. Accordingly, Panksepp (1998) suggested
the following:

Emotions are the psychoneural processes that are influential in
controlling the vigor and patterning of actions in the dynamic
flow of intense behavioral interchanges between animals as
well as with certain objects that are important for survival.
Hence, each emotion has a characteristic “feeling tone” that
is especially important in encoding the intrinsic values of
these interactions, depending on their likelihood of either
promoting or hindering survival (both in the immediate
“personal” and long-term “reproductive” sense). Subjective

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experiential-feelings arise from the interactions of various
emotional systems with the fundamental brain substrates of
“the self,” that is important in encoding new information
as well as retrieving information on subsequent events and
allowing individuals efficiently to generalize new events and
make decisions.

He went further to propose seven primary emotional
systems/prototype emotional states, namely SEEKING, RAGE,
FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY that represent
basic foundations for living and learning.

Moods last longer than emotions, which are also characterized
by positive and negative moods. In contrast, feelings refer to
mental experiences that are necessarily valence, either good
or bad as well as accompanied by internal physiological
changes in the body, specifically the viscera, including the
heart, lungs, and gut, for maintaining or restoring homeostatic
balances. Feelings are not commonly caused emotions. Because
the generation of emotional feelings requires a neural re-
mapping of different features of the body state in the CNS,
resulting from cognitive “appraisal” where the anterior insular
cortex plays a key integrative role (Craig and Craig, 2009;
Damasio and Carvalho, 2013). Nonetheless, Panksepp (2005)
has defended the view that emotional operating systems (caudal
and medial subcortical brain regions) appeared to generate
emotional experiences via localized electrical stimulation of the
brain stimulation (ESB) rather dependent on changes of the
external environment or bodily states. Affects are subjective
experienced emotional feelings that are difficult to describe,
but have been linked to bodily states such as homeostatic
drives (hunger and thirst) and external stimuli (visual, auditory,
taste, touch, smell) (Panksepp, 2005). The latter are sometimes
called “core affect,” which refers to consciously accessible
elemental processes involving pleasure and arousal that span
bipolar dimensions (Russell and Barrett, 1999). In addition, a
“drive” is an inherent action program that is responsible for
the satisfaction of basic and instinctual (biologically pre-set)
physiological needs, e.g., hunger, thirst, libido, exploration, play,
and attachment to mates (Panksepp, 1998); this is sometimes
called “homeostatic drive.” In brief, a crucial characteristic
shared by emotion, mood, feeling, affect and drive is their
intrinsic valence, which lies on the spectrum of positive and
negative valence (pleasure-displeasure/goodness-badness). The
term emotion exemplifies the “umbrella” concept that includes
affective, cognitive, behavioral, expressive and physiological
changes; emotion is triggered by external stimuli and associated
with the combination of feeling and motivation.

RECENT EVIDENCE REGARDING THE
ROLE OF EMOTION IN LEARNING AND
MEMORY

The impact of emotion on learning processes is the focus of many
current studies. Although it is well established that emotions
influence memory retention and recall, in terms of learning,
the question of emotional impacts remains questionable. Some

studies report that positive emotions facilitate learning and
contribute to academic achievement, being mediated by the
levels of self-motivation and satisfaction with learning materials
(Um et al., 2012). Conversely, a recent study reported that
negative learning-centered state (confusion) improve learning
because of an increased focus of attention on learning material
that leads to higher performances on post tests and transfer tests
(D’Mello et al., 2014). Confusion is not an emotion but a cognitive
disequilibrium state induced by contradictory data. A confused
student might be frustrated with their poor understanding
of subject matter, and this is related to both the SEEKING
and RAGE systems, with a low-level of activation of rage or
irritation, and amplification of SEEKING. Hence, motivated
students who respond to their confusion seek new understanding
by doing additional cognitive work. Further clarification of
this enhances learning. Moreover, stress, a negative emotional
state, has also been reported to facilitate and/or impair both
learning and memory, depending on intensity and duration
(Vogel and Schwabe, 2016). More specifically, mild and acute
stress facilitates learning and cognitive performance, while excess
and chronic stress impairs learning and is detrimental to memory
performance. Many other negative consequences attend owing
to overactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis,
which results in both impaired synaptic plasticity and learning
ability (Joëls et al., 2004). Nonetheless, confounding influences
of emotions on learning and memory can be explained in
terms of attentional and motivational components. Attentional
components enhance perceptual processing, which then helps
to select and organize salient information via a “bottom-up”
approach to higher brain functions and awareness (Vuilleumier,
2005). Motivational components induce curiosity, which is a
state associated with psychological interest in novel and/or
surprising activities (stimuli). A curiosity state encourages
further exploration and apparently prepares the brain to
learn and remember in both children and adults (Oudeyer
et al., 2016). The term “surprising” might be conceptualized
as an incongruous situation (expectancy violation) refers to a
discrepancy between prior expectations and the new information;
it may drive a cognitive reset for “learned content” that draws
one’s attention.

Similarly, emotionally enhanced memory functions have been
reported in relation to selective attention elicited by emotionally
salient stimuli (Vuilleumier, 2005; Schupp et al., 2007). During
the initial perceptual stage, attention is biased toward emotionally
salient information that supports detection by the salient input.
Thus, stimulating selective attention increases the likelihood
for emotional information to become encoded in LTM storage
associated with a top-down control in sensory pathways that
are modulated by the frontal and parietal cortices. This is an
example of an indirect influence on perception and attention
that regulates selective sensory processing and behavioral
determination (Vuilleumier, 2005). Because the human sensory
systems have no capacity to simultaneously process everything
at once, which necessitates attentional mechanisms. Top-down
attentional processing obtains adequate attentional resource
allocation to process emotional valence information for encoding
and retrieval via cooperation with the brain regions such as the

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ventromedial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus,
along with the primary visual cortex (helps to realize both
emotion and conceptualization). Similarly, experimental studies
have examined the phenomenon by using various attentional
tasks, including filtering (dichotic listening and Stroop task),
search (visual search), cuing (attentional probe, spatial cuing)
and attentional blink [rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP)]
paradigms (Yiend, 2010). These investigations demonstrated
biased attentional processing toward emotionally stimulating
material content attended by increased sensory responses. One
study reported that emotional stimuli induce a “pop-out” effect
that leads to the attentional capture and privileged processing
(Öhman et al., 2001). Moreover, a study using the RSVP paradigm
compared healthy subjects with a group of patients with bilateral
amygdala damage. The results revealed that healthy subjects
exhibited increased perception and attention toward emotional
words compared to patients, indicating that the amygdala
plays a crucial role in emotional processing (Anderson and
Phelps, 2001). In addition, functional neuroimaging showed
that the insular cortex, the secondary somatosensory cortex,
the cingulate cortex and nuclei in the tegmentum and
hypothalamus are the brain regions that regulate attentional
focus by integrating external and internal inputs to create
emotional feeling states, thus modulating a motivational state
that obtains homeostasis (Damasio et al., 2000). All emotional
systems associated with strong motivational components such
as psychological salient bodily need states operate through the
SEEKING system that motivates appetitive/exploratory behavior
to acquire resources needed for survival (Montag and Panksepp,
2017).

The distinction between emotion and homeostasis, is the
process of regulation for continuously changing internal states
via appropriate corrective responses that respond to both internal
and external environmental conditions to maintain an optimal
physiological state in the body. Homeostatic affects, such as
hunger and thirst, are not considered prototype emotional states.
Because homeostatic affects have never been mapped using
ESB that arouse basic emotional responses (Panksepp, 2005,
2007). However, emotional prototypes can be thought of as
evolutionary extensions/predictions of impending homeostatic
threats; for example, SEEKING might be an evolutionary
extension of intense hunger and thirst (the major sources of
suffering that signal energy depletion to search for food and
water intake) (Watt, 2012). Homeostatic imbalances engage the
mesolimbic motivational system via hypothalamic interactions
with the extended trajectory of the SEEKING system [centrally
including the lateral hypothalamus, ventral basal ganglia, and
ventral tegmental area (VTA)]. It is the distributed functional
network that serves the general function of finding resources
for survival that gets hungry animals to food, thirsty animals
to water, cold animals to warmer environments, etc. (Panksepp,
1998). To summarize, both emotion and motivation are
crucial for the maintenance of psychological and physiological
homeostasis, while emotional roles are particularly important in
the process of encoding new information containing emotional
components. The latter increases attention toward salient new
information by selectively enhancing detection, evaluation, and

extraction of data for memorization. In addition, motivational
components promote learning and enhance subsequent memory
retrieval while generalizing new events consequent to adaptive
physiological changes.

THE EVOLUTIONARY FRAMEWORK OF
EMOTION AND THE SEVEN PRIMARY
EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS

Evolution built our higher minds (the faculty of consciousness
and thoughts) on a foundation of primary-process of emotional
mechanism that preprogrammed executive action systems (the
prototype emotions) rely on cognitive processing (interpretation)
and appraisal in the organisms attempt to decipher the type of
situation they might be in; in other words, how to deal with
emotionally challenging situations, whether it is a play situation
or a threat situation (where RAGE and FEAR might be the
appropriate system to recruit). Emotion offers preprogrammed
but partially modifiable (under the secondary process of learning
and memory) behavioral routines in the service of the solution
of prototypical adaptive challenges, particularly in dealing with
friend vs. foe; these routines are evolutionary extensions of
homeostasis and embed a prediction beyond the current situation
to a potentially future homeostatic benefit or threat. Thus,
evolution uses whatever sources for survival and procreative
success. According to Panksepp and Solms (2012), key CNS
emotional-affective processes are (1) Primary-process emotions;
(2) Secondary-process learning and memory; and (3) Tertiary-
process higher cognitive functions. Fundamentally, primary
emotional processes regulate unconditioned emotional actions
that anticipate survival needs and consequently guide secondary
process via associative learning mechanisms (classical/Pavlovian
and instrumental/operant conditioning). Subsequently, learning
process sends relevant information to higher brain regions such
as the prefrontal cortex to perform tertiary cognition process
that allows planning for future based on past experiences,
stored in LTM. In other words, the brain’s neurodevelopment
trajectory and “wiring up” activations show that there is a
genetically coded aversion to situations that generate RAGE,
FEAR and other negative states for minimizing painful things
and maximizing pleasurable kinds of stimulation. These are not
learned-all learning (secondary-process) is piggybacked on top
of the “primary-process emotions” that are governed by “Law
of Affect” (see Figure 1). What now follows is an explanation
of these CNS emotional-affective processing sub-levels and their
inter-relationships.

Primary-Process Emotions (Prototype
Emotional States)
The emotional operating system is an inherited and genetically
encoded circuitry that anticipates key survival and homeostatic
needs. Thus, animals and humans share primary emotional
network at the subcortical level, which includes the midbrain’s
periaqueductal grey (PAG) and VTA, basal ganglia (amygdala
and nucleus accumbens), and insula, as well as diencephalon

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FIGURE 1 | Shows the nested hierarchies of circular emotional control and cognitive regulation for “bottom-up” influences and “top-down” regulations. The
schematic shows conceptual relationships between primary processes of emotional system (lower brain function), as well as secondary processes of cognitive
system and tertiary processing (higher brain function). Primary emotional processing for homeostatic, sensory and emotional affects facilitate secondary learning and
memory processing via the “SEEKING” system that promotes survival and reproductive success (bottom-up instinctual influences). As secondary processes are
continually integrated with primary emotional processing, they mature to higher brain cognitive faculties to generate effective solutions for living and subsequently
exert top-down regulatory control over behavior. The primary emotional processing is mediated by complex unconditioned emotional responses (evolutionary
“memories”) through “Law of Affect”; sometimes called “reinforcement principle” that explains how the brain emotional networks control learning. This bi-circular
causation for higher brain functionality is coordinated by lower brain functions [adapted from (Panksepp and Solms, 2012)].

(the cingulate and medial frontal cortices through the lateral
and medial hypothalamus and medial thalamus). Subcortical
brain regions are involved in three sub-components of affects:
(1) core emotional feelings (fear, anger, joy and various forms
of distress); (2) homeostatic drives/motivational experiences
(hunger and thirst); and (3) sensory affects (pain, taste,
temperature and disgust). Primary-process emotions are not
unconscious. Strong emotion is intrinsically conscious at least
in the sense that it is experienced even if we might mislabel
it, or animal clearly is not able to attach a semantic label-these
are simply not realistic standards for determining whether
something is conscious or not conscious. Nonetheless, the
emotional experiences guide behavior to promote survival and
procreative success as well as mediate learning (‘rewarding’
and ‘punishing’ learning effects) and thinking at secondary and
tertiary levels.

Secondary-Process Emotions (Learning
and Memory)
Primary emotional systems guide associative learning and
memory (classical/operant conditioning and emotional habit)
processes via the mediation of emotional networks. This
includes the basal ganglia (basolateral and central amygdala,

nucleus accumbens, thalamus and dorsal striatum), and
the medial temporal lobe (MTL) including hippocampus
as well as the entorhinal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and
parahippocampal cortices that responsible for declarative
memories. Thus, secondary processes of learning and memory
scrutinize and regulate emotional feelings in relation to
environmental events that subsequently refine effective solutions
to living.

Tertiary-Process Emotions (Higher
Cognitive Functions)
Higher cognitive functions operate within the cortical regions,
including the frontal cortex for awareness and consciousness
functions such as thinking, planning, emotional regulation and
free-will (intention-to-act), which mediate emotional feelings.
Hence, cognition is an extension of emotion (just as emotion
is an extension of homeostasis aforementioned). Tertiary
processes are continually integrated with the secondary processes
and reach a mature level (higher brain functions) to better
anticipating key survival issues, thus yielding cognitive control
of emotion via “top-down” regulation. In other words, brain-
mind evolution enables human to reason but also regulate our
emotions.

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Psychologist Neisser (1963) suggested that cognition
serves emotion and homeostatic needs where environmental
information is evaluated in terms of its ability to satisfy or
frustrate needs. In other words, cognition is in the service
of satisfying emotional and homeostatic needs. This infers
that cognition modulates, activates and inhibits emotion.
Hence, emotion is not a simple linear event but rather a
feedback process that autonomously restores an individual’s
state of equilibrium. More specifically stated, emotion regulates
the allocation of processing resources and determines our
behavior by tuning us to the world in certain biased ways,
thus steering us toward things that “feel good” while avoiding
things that “feel bad.” This indicates that emotion guides
and motivates cognition that promotes survival by guiding
behavior and desires according to unique goal orientation
(Northoff et al., 2006). Therefore, the CNS maintains complex
processes by continually monitoring internal and external
environments. For example, changes in internal environments
(contraction of visceral muscles, heart rate, etc.) are sensed by
an interoceptive system (afferent peripheral nerves) that signals
the sensory cortex (primary, secondary and somatosensory)
for integration and processing. Thus, from an evolutionary
perspective, human mental activity is driven by the ancient
emotional and motivational brain systems shared by cross-
mammalians that encode life-sustaining and life-detracting
features to promote adaptive instinctual responses. Moreover,
emotional and homeostasis mechanisms are characterized by
intrinsic valence processing that is either a positive/pleasure or
negative/displeasure bias. Homeostasis imbalance is universally
experienced as negative emotional feelings and only becomes
positively valenced when rectified. Hence, individuals sustain
bodily changes that underlie psychological (emotional) and
biological (homeostatic) influences on two sides, i.e., one side
is oriented toward the survival and reproductive success that is
associated with positively valenced emotional and physiologic
homeostasis (anticipatory response) and the other responds
to survival and reproductive failure associated with negatively
valenced emotional and physiologic homeostasis (reactive
response). Consequently, cognition modulates both emotional
and homeostatic states by enhancing survival and maximizing
rewards while minimizing risk and punishments. Thus, this
evolutionary consideration suggests the brain as a ‘predictive
engine’ to make it adaptive in a particular environment. Figure 2
demonstrates this cyclic homeostatic regulation.

Panksepp (1998) identified seven primary emotional systems
that govern mammalian brains as follows: SEEKING, RAGE,
FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY. Here, we
use UPPERCASE letters to denote unconditional emotional
responses (emotional primes). These primary emotional neural
networks are situated in the subcortical regions; moreover,
the evidence demonstrates that decortication leaves primary
emotional systems intact (Panksepp et al., 1994). Hence, cortical
regions are non-essential for the generation of prototype
emotional states but are responsible for their modulation and
regulation. The present article emphasizes SEEKING because
it is the most fundamental of the primary emotional systems
and is crucial for learning and memory. The SEEKING system

FIGURE 2 | Conceptually maps the homeostatic regulation of internal and
external inputs that affect cognition, emotion, feeling, and drive: Inputs→
Homeostasis↔ Emotion∗ ↔ Cognition. This lead to the experience of one’s
self via overt behavior that is biased by a specific emotion stimulated by bodily
changes that underlie psychological/physiological states. ∗Represents
emotion associated with a combination of feeling and motivation/drive;↔
indicates a bi-directional interaction; and→ indicates a one-directional
relationship. Adapted from Damasio and Carvalho (2013).

facilitates learning because when fully aroused, it fills the mind
with interest that then motivates the individual to search out
and learn things that they need, crave and desire. Accordingly,
SEEKING generates and sustains curiosity’s engagement for
a particular purpose while also promoting learning via its
mediation of anticipatory eagerness (Oudeyer et al., 2016).
In other words, the SEEKING system has been designed to
automatically learn by exploring anything that results in acquired
behavioral manifestations for survival operations, all the way
from the mesolimbic-mesocortical dopamine system through to
the prefrontal cortex (PFC); thus, it is intimately linked with LTM
formation (Blumenfeld and Ranganath, 2007). Consequently, it
is the foundation of secondary learning and higher cognitive
processes when compared with the remaining six emotional
systems. However, this system is less activated during chronic
stress, sickness, and depression, all of which are likely to
impair learning and various higher cognitions. On the other
hand, overactivity of this system promotes excessively impulsive
behaviors attended by manic thoughts and psychotic delusions.
Moreover, massive lesion of SEEKING’s neural network (midline
subcortical regions-the PAG, VTA, nucleus accumbens (NAc),
medial forebrain and anterior cingulate) lead to consciousness
disorder, specifically akinetic mutism (AKM) syndrome that
the patient appears wakeful, attentive but motionless (Schiff
and Plum, 2000; Watt and Pincus, 2004). In brief, the

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SEEKING system holds a critical position that optimizes the
performance of emotion, motivation, and cognition processes
by generating positive subjective emotional states-positive
expectancy, enthusiastic exploration, and hopefulness. Because
the seven primary emotional systems and their associated key
neuroanatomical and key neurochemical features have been
reviewed elsewhere (Panksepp, 2011a,b), they are not covered in
this review.

EMOTION–COGNITION INTERACTIONS
AND ITS IMPACTS ON LEARNING AND
MEMORY

Studies in psychology (Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999) and
neuroscience (Dolcos et al., 2011) proposed that cognition and
emotion processes are operated at two separate but interacting
systems: (i) the “cool cognitive system” is hippocampus-based
that is associated with emotionally neutral cognitive functions
as well as cognitive controls; and (ii) the “hot emotional
system” is amygdala-based that responsible for emotional
processing and responses toward unconditioned emotional
stimuli such as appetitive and fear-evoking conditions. In
addition, an early view of a dorsal/ventral stream distinction was
commonly reported between both systems. The dorsal stream
encompasses the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and
lateral parietal cortex, which are involved in the cool system
for active maintenance of controlled processes such as cognitive
performance and the pursuit of goal-relevant information
in working memory (WM) amidst interference. In contrast,
the hot system involves the ventral neural system, including
the amygdala, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and
medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as well as orbitofrontal (OFC)
and occipito-temporal cortex (OTC), all of which encompass
emotional processing systems (Dolcos et al., 2011). Nonetheless,
recent investigations claim that distinct cognitive and emotional
neural systems are not separated but are deeply integrated and
contain evidence of mediation and modulation (Dolcos et al.,
2011; Okon-Singer et al., 2015). Consequently, emotions are now
thought to influence the formation of a hippocampal-dependent
memory system (Pessoa, 2008), exerting a long-term impact on
learning and memory. In other words, although cognitive and
affective processes can be independently conceptualized, it is not
surprising that emotions powerfully modify cognitive appraisals
and memory processes and vice versa. The innate emotional
systems interact with higher brain systems and probably no
an emotional state that is free of cognitive ramifications.
If cortical functions were evolutionarily built upon the pre-
existing subcortical foundations, it provides behavioral flexibility
(Panksepp, 1998).

The hippocampus is located in the MTL and is thought to be
responsible for the potentiation and consolidation of declarative
memory before newly formed memories are distributed and
stored in cortical regions (Squire, 1992). Moreover, evidence
indicates that the hippocampus functions as a hub for brain
network communications-a type of continuous exchange of
information center that establishes LTM dominated by theta

wave oscillations (Battaglia et al., 2011) that are correlated with
learning and memory (Rutishauser et al., 2010). In other words,
hippocampus plays a crucial role in hippocampal-dependent
learning and declarative memories. Numerous studies have
reported that the amygdala and hippocampus are synergistically
activated during memory encoding to form a LTM of emotional
information, that is associated with better retention (McGaugh
et al., 1996; Richter-Levin and Akirav, 2000; Richardson et al.,
2004). More importantly, these studies (fear-related learning)
strongly suggest that the amygdala’s involvement in emotional
processing strengthens the memory network by modulating
memory consolidation; thus, emotional content is remembered
better than neutral content.

In addition to amygdala-hippocampus interactions, one
study reported that the PFC participates in emotional valence
(pleasant vs. unpleasant) processing during WM (Perlstein
et al., 2002). Simons and Spiers (2003) also reviewed studies
of interactions between the PFC and MTL during the memory
encoding and retrieval processes underlying successful LTM.
They demonstrated that the PFC is crucial for LTM because
it engages with the active maintenance of information linked
to the cognitive control of selection, engagement, monitoring,
and inhibition. Hence, it detects relevant data that appears
worthwhile, which is then referred for encoding, thus leading
to successful LTM (Simons and Spiers, 2003). Consistent
findings were reported for recognition tasks investigated by
fMRI where the left PFC-hippocampal network appeared to
support successful memory encoding for neutral and negative
non-arousing words. Simultaneously, amygdala-hippocampus
activation was observed during the memory encoding of negative
arousing words (Kensinger and Corkin, 2004). Moreover, Mega
et al. (1996) proposed two divisions for the limbic system: (i)
the paleocortex division (the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex,
temporal polar and anterior insula), and (ii) the archicortical
division (the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex). The
first component is responsible for the implicit integration of
affects, drives and object associations; the second deals with
explicit sensory processing, encoding, and attentional control.
Although divided into two sub-divisions, the paleocortex and
archicortical cortex remain integrated during learning. Here,
the paleocortex appears to manage the internal environment
for implicit learning while integrating affects, drives, and
emotions. Simultaneously, the archicortical division appears to
manage external environment input for explicit learning by
facilitating attention selection with attendant implicit encoding.
To some extent, the paleocortex system might come to exercise
a supervisory role and link the ancient affective systems to the
newer cognitive systems.

Amygdala–Hippocampus Interactions
The findings of previous studies suggest that the amygdala is
involved in emotional arousal processing and modulation of the
memory processes (encoding and storage) that contribute to
the emotional enhancement of memory (McGaugh et al., 1996;
Richter-Levin and Akirav, 2000). Activation of the amygdala
during the encoding of emotionally arousing information
(both pleasant/unpleasant) has been reported that correlates

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with subsequent recall. Because of the interaction between
basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) with other brain
regions that are involved in consolidating memories, including
the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, NAc, and other cortical
regions. Thus, BLA activation results from emotionally arousing
events, which appear to modulate memory storage-related
regions that influence long-term memories (McGaugh, 2004).
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, 2000). Moreover, the amygdala transmits
direct feedback/projection along the entire rostral-caudal cortices
to the visual cortex of the ventral stream system, including
primary visual (V1) and temporal cortices (Amaral et al., 2003);
furthermore, the amygdala activates the frontal and parietal
regions during negative emotion processing that are involved in
attention control. 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, 2005). This
suggests that amygdala activation is associated with enhanced
attention and is a part of how salience enhances information
retention.

In addition to attentional biases toward emotional content
during memory encoding, emotionally arousing experiences have
been found to induce the release of adrenal stress hormones,
followed by the activation of β-noradrenergic receptors in the
BLA, which then release epinephrine and glucocorticoids in
the BLA, while enhancing memory consolidation of emotional
experiences (McGaugh and Roozendaal, 2002). 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. The BLA comprises the basal amygdala (BA) and
lateral amygdala (LA), which project to numerous brain regions
involved in learning and memory, including the hippocampus
and PFC (Cahill and McGaugh, 1998; Sharot and Phelps,
2004; McGaugh, 2006). 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, 2010). 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, 2016).

Prefrontal Cortex–Hippocampus
Interaction
The PFC is located in the foremost anterior region of the frontal
lobe and is associated with higher-order cognitive functions
such as prediction and planning of/for the future (Barbey et al.,
2009). Moreover, it is thought to act as a control center for
selective attention (Squire et al., 2013), and also plays a critical
role in WM as well as semantic processing, cognitive control,

problem-solving, reasoning and emotional processing (Miller
and Cohen, 2001; Yamasaki et al., 2002). The PFC is connected to
sub-cortical regions in the limbic system, including the amygdala
and various parts of the MTL (Simons and Spiers, 2003). Its
involvement in WM and emotional processing are intimately
connected with the MTL structures that decisively affect LTM
encoding and retrieval (Blumenfeld and Ranganath, 2007) in
addition to self-referential processing (Northoff et al., 2006).
Structurally, the PFC is divided into five sub-regions: anterior
(BA 10), dorsolateral (BA 9 and 46), ventrolateral (BA 44, 45, and
47), medial (BA 25 and 32) and orbitofrontal (BA 11, 12, and 14)
(Simons and Spiers, 2003).

The mPFC has been associated with anticipatory responses
that reflect cognitive expectations for pleasant/unpleasant
experiences (appraising rewarding/aversive stimuli to generate
emotional responses) (Ochsner et al., 2002; Ochsner and
Gross, 2005). 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., 2005). Similarly, emotional and
non-emotional judgment task using the International Affective
Pictures System (IAPS) demonstrated increased activation of the
mPFC, specifically both ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
and dmPFC during emotional judgment when compared with
non-emotional judgment. However, an inverse relationship was
observed in the lateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC and DLPFC)
during non-emotional judgment (Northoff et al., 2004). 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., 1999).

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., 2004; Comte et al.,
2014). 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., 2002). Their findings revealed increased activation in
the right DLPFC in response to pleasant IAPS pictures, but
with an opposite effect in response to unpleasant pictures
(decreased activity in the right DLPFC). 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,
2006).

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Another study investigated the PFC’s role in emotional
mediation, reporting that the right VLPFC provided cognitive
resources for both emotional reappraisal and learning processes
via two separate subcortical pathways: (i) a path through NAc
appeared to greater reappraisal success (suppress negative
emotion) and (ii) another path through the ventral amygdala
appeared to reduced reappraisal success (boost negative
experience). This result indicates the VLPFC’s role in the
regulation of emotional responses (reducing negative appraisal
and generating positive appraisal) by retrieving appropriate
information from memory (Wager et al., 2008). 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, 2013). 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., 2007). 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., 2003). Consistent findings were also
reported by (Dolcos et al., 2004), who suggested an emotional
mediation effect deriving from PFC activity in relation to
cognitive functions such as strategic memory, semantic memory,
and WM, which subsequently enhanced memory formation.
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.

EFFECTS DERIVING FROM DIFFERENT
MODALITIES OF EMOTIONAL STIMULI
ON LEARNING AND MEMORY

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., 2004),
pictures (Dolcos et al., 2005; Weymar et al., 2011), film
clips (Cahill et al., 1996), and faces (González-Roldan et al.,

2011), to investigate neural correlates of emotional processing
and the impact of emotion on subsequent memory. 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.

An event-related fMRI study examined the neural correlates
of responses to emotional pictures and words in which both
were manipulated in terms of positive and negative valence,
and where neutral emotional content served as a baseline
(“conditioned stimuli”/no activating emotion with valence rating
of 5 that spans between 1/negative valence-9/positive valence),
even though all stimuli were consistent in terms of arousal
levels (Kensinger and Schacter, 2006). 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. The left amygdala responded to words while either the
right and/or bilateral amygdala activation regions responded
to pictures. 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.
The lateralization of the amygdala’s activation was consistent
with that in other studies that also showed left-lateralized
amygdala responses for words (Hamann and Mao, 2002) vs.
right-lateralized amygdala responses for images (Pegna et al.,
2005). However, a wide range of studies suggest that lateralization
likely differs with sex (Hamann, 2005), individual personality
(Hamann and Canli, 2004), mood (Rusting, 1998), age (Allard
and Kensinger, 2014), sleep (Walker, 2009), subject’s awareness of
stimuli (Morris et al., 1998), stress (Payne et al., 2007) and other
variables. 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, 2009a). German verbs or pseudo-words
associated with positive, negative or neutral emotions were used,
in addition to happy vs. angry faces, as well as neutral and slightly
distorted faces. 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., 2003; Schacht and Sommer,
2009b). 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

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TABLE 1 | The prefrontal cortex (PFC) sub-regions, corresponding Brodmann areas, and associated cognitive-emotional functions.

PFC
region

BA Functions

Cognitive Emotional

aPFC 10 Engaged in higher-level cognitive functions (i.e., problem solving,
planning and reasoning) and executive processes including WM
(Koechlin et al., 1999).

Controls social-emotional interaction to coordinate rapid action
selection processes, detection of emotional conflicts and inhibition of
emotionally driven responses. Disruption leads to loss of control over
automatic emotional tendencies and more errors in rule-driven
responses (Volman et al., 2011).

The pursuit of higher behavioral goals, with specialized roles in the
explicit processing of internal mental states in WM, relational
integration, and memory retrieval (Ramnani and Owen, 2004).

DLPFC 9, 46 Left DLPFC manipulates information in WM while right DLPFC
manipulates information in reasoning processes (Curtis and D’Esposito,
2003; Barbey et al., 2013).

Active maintenance of valence information in WM with increased
WM-related activity in response to positive emotion (specifically in the
right DLPFC) which leads to PFC-mediated cognitive functions in WM
(i.e., increased cognitive flexibility and problem solving)
(Ashby and Isen, 1999).

Left DLPFC is associated with encoding and organization of material to
be remembered; Right DLPFC is associated with memory retrieval
(Dobbins et al., 2002).

Reward processing (Haber and Knutson, 2010).
Emotion regulation (Ochsner and Gross, 2005).

VLPFC 44,
45,
47

Left VLPFC supports mnemonic control (i.e., task switching, WM and
semantic retrieval), and supports access to stored conceptual
representations (Badre and Wagner, 2007).

Emotion regulation (Opialla et al., 2015).

Left VLPFC is involved in elaborative (semantic/phonological) encoding
of information into episodic memory, the specification of retrieval cues
and the maintenance of LTM retrieval (Poldrack et al., 1999; Wagner
et al., 2001). Right VLPFC supports memory encoding and retrieval of
visuospatial stimuli, action imitation and motor inhibition (Levy and
Wagner, 2011).

Inhibition of distracting emotions (right VLPFC for inhibition of negative
emotions) (Dolcos and McCarthy, 2006).

mPFC 25, 32 Learning, memory, and decision-making (Euston et al., 2012; Brod
et al., 2013).

Dorsal-caudal mPFC involved in appraisal-expression of negative
emotion; ventral-rostral PFC generates emotional regulation-responses
(Etkin et al., 2011).

OFC 11, 12,
14

Decision making (Bechara et al., 2000). Emotional processing and responses (Northoff et al., 2000), social and
emotional judgment (Moll et al., 2002), facilitation of regret (Camille
et al., 2004).

Reward processing and reinforcement learning (Rolls, 2000).

WM, working memory; PFC, prefrontal cortex; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; LTM, long-term memory; mPFC, medial
prefrontal cortex.

neural circuits-approximately 130 ms for happy faces compared
to 380 ms for positive verbs (Schacht and Sommer, 2009a).
Moreover, augmented responses observed in the later positive
complex (LPP), i.e., larger late positive waves in response to
emotional verbs (both positive and negative) and angry faces,
all associated with the increased motivational significance of
emotional stimuli (Schupp et al., 2000) and increased selective
attention to pictures (Kok, 2000).

Khairudin et al. (2011) investigated effects of emotional
content on explicit memory with two standardized stimuli:
emotional words from the Affective Norms for English Words
(ANEW) and emotional pictures from the IAPS. 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. (2012) investigated the effects of
emotional content on explicit verbal memory by assessing recall
and recognition for emotionally positive, negative and neutral

words. 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.
recall test.

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, 2005). 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

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memory. Table 2 summarizes studies on the brain regions that
respond to standardized stimuli as cited above, and also for
pictures of emotional facial expression or Pictures of Facial
Affect (POFA), Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW)
for emotional words, as well as for the International Affective
Digitized Sound System (IDAS) for emotional sounds.

NEUROIMAGING TECHNIQUES FOR THE
INVESTIGATION OF EMOTIONAL-
COGNITIVE INTERACTIONS

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
(fMRI)
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).
fMRI is an indirect measure of hemodynamic response by
measuring changes in local ratios of oxy-hemoglobin vs. deoxy-
hemoglobin, typically known as a blood oxygenation level
dependent (BOLD) signal (Cabeza and Nyberg, 2000). Dolcos
et al. (2005) examined the effects of emotional content on
memory enhancement during retrieval process using event-
related fMRI to measure retrieval-related activity after a retention
interval of 1 year. 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. high monetary reward) on episodic retrieval by manipulating
task difficulty, fMRI data reports that increased activation in
the substantia nigra/VTA, MTL, dmPFC, and DLPFC when
successful memory retrieval with high difficulty than with low
difficulty. Moreover, reward-related of functional connectivities
between the (i) SN/VTA–MTL and (ii) SN/VTA–dmPFC appear
to increases significantly with increases retrieval accuracy and
subjective motivation. Thus, Shigemune et al. (2017) suggest that
reward/motivation-related memory enhancement modulated by
networking between the SN/VTA (reward-related), dmPFC
(motivation-related) and MTL (memory-related) network as well
as DLPFC (cognitive controls) with high task difficulty.

Taken together, these findings indicate that the amygdala
and MTL have important roles in the recollection of emotional
and motivational memory. Another fMRI study reported that

greater success for emotional retrieval (emotional hits > misses)
was associated with neural activation of the bilateral amygdala,
hippocampus, and parahippocampus, whereas a higher success
rate for neutral retrieval is associated with a greater activity in
right posterior parahippocampus regions (Shafer and Dolcos,
2014). 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. More
specifically, it appears that amygdala activation modulates both
the hippocampus and visual cortex during visual perception and
enhances the selection and organization of salient information via
the “bottom-up” approach to higher cognitive functions directed
at awareness. 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., 2001). 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 (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). PET uses positron-emitting radionuclides
such as 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and positron-emitting-
oxygen isotope tagged with water ([15O] H2O), etc. This
technique identifies different neural networks involving pleasant,
unpleasant and neutral emotions (Lane et al., 1997). 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., 1998). 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. (1999) identified CNS
regions associated with appetitive states (hunger and satiation)

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re
m

ot
io

na
lp

ic
tu

re
s

th
an

w
or

ds
.

21
ad

ul
ts

(1
0

Fe
m

al
e,

11
M

al
e)

H
ea

lth
y

18
–3

5
ye

ar
s

H
am

an
n

an
d

M
ao

,
20

02

W
or

ds
(A

N
E

W
)

H
ig

h-
ar

ou
sa

l
po

si
tiv

e,
hi

gh
-a

ro
us

al
ne

ga
tiv

e,
an

d
ne

ut
ra

l

B
ra

in
re

sp
on

se
s

to
po

si
tiv

e
an

d
ne

ga
tiv

e
em

ot
io

na
lly

ar
ou

si
ng

w
or

ds

E
ve

nt
-r

el
at

ed
fM

R
I

A
m

yg
da

la
,v

m
P

FC
•

Le
ft

am
yg

da
la

ac
tiv

at
ed

fo
r

bo
th

po
si

tiv
e

an
d

ne
ga

tiv
e

w
or

ds
.

•
N

o
ac

tiv
at

io
n

ob
se

rv
ed

in
th

e
vm

P
FC

in
re

sp
on

se
to

po
si

tiv
e

or
ne

ga
tiv

e
w

or
ds

.

14
ad

ul
ts

(A
ll)

H
ea

lth
y

20
–3

1
ye

ar
s

P
eg

na
et

al
.,

20
05

Fa
ce

s
P

os
iti

ve
,

ne
ga

tiv
e,

an
d

ne
ut

ra
l

R
es

po
ns

es
to

em
ot

io
na

lf
ac

e
ex

pr
es

si
on

w
ith

ou
t

pr
im

ar
y

vi
su

al
ar

ea
s

E
ve

nt
-r

el
at

ed
fM

R
I

A
m

yg
da

la
•

R
ig

ht
am

yg
da

la
ac

tiv
at

ed
fo

r
al

l
em

ot
io

na
lf

ac
es

(a
ng

er
,h

ap
pi

ne
ss

,a
nd

fe
ar

).

1
M

al
e

B
lin

d
si

gh
t

pa
tie

nt
52

ye
ar

s

C
an

li
et

al
.,

20
00

P
ic

tu
re

s
(IA

P
S

)
N

eg
at

iv
e

an
d

ne
ut

ra
l

A
m

yg
da

la
re

sp
on

se
to

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ot

io
na

l
ex

pe
rie

nc
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du
rin

g
st

ud
y

an
d

LT
M

E
ve

nt
-r

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at

ed
fM

R
I

A
m

yg
da

la
•

Le
ft

am
yg

da
la

ac
tiv

at
io

n
du

rin
g

en
co

di
ng

w
as

a
pr

ed
ic

to
r

of
su

bs
eq

ue
nt

re
co

gn
iti

on
m

em
or

y
fo

r
pi

ct
ur

es
w

ith
hi

gh
em

ot
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na
li

nt
en

si
ty

ra
tin

gs
.

10
Fe

m
al

e
H

ea
lth

y
–

K
ra

us
e

et
al

.,
20

00
Fi

lm
cl

ip
s

A
gg

re
ss

iv
e,

sa
d,

an
d

ne
ut

ra
l

R
es

po
ns

es
of

E
E

G
fre

qu
en

cy
ba

nd
s

on
th

e
em

ot
io

na
lfi

lm
co

nt
en

t

E
E

G
O

cc
ip

ita
l(

P
os

te
rio

r),
ce

nt
ra

la
nd

fro
nt

al
(a

nt
er

io
r)

•
E

E
G

th
et

a
(4

–6
H

z)
w

as
m

or
e

sy
nc

hr
on

iz
ed

in
oc

ci
pi

ta
la

nd
fro

nt
al

re
gi

on
s

fo
r

th
e

ag
gr

es
si

ve
fil

m
s

co
m

pa
re

d
w

ith
ne

ut
ra

lfi
lm

s.
•

E
E

G
th

et
a

(4
–6

H
z)

re
sp

on
d

sp
ec

ifi
ca

lly
to

vi
su

al
em

ot
io

na
ls

tim
ul

us
.

•
E

E
G

al
ph

a
is

as
so

ci
at

ed
w

ith
at

te
nt

io
n

an
d

ha
bi

tu
at

io
n.

18
ad

ul
ts

(A
ll

Fe
m

al
e)

H
ea

lth
y

20
–3

3
ye

ar
s

C
ut

hb
er

t
et

al
.,

20
00

P
ic

tu
re

s
(IA

P
S

)
P

le
as

an
t,

ne
ut

ra
l,

an
d

un
pl

ea
sa

nt
B

ra
in

re
sp

on
se

s
to

em
ot

io
na

lp
ic

tu
re

s
E

R
P

M
id

lin
e

(F
z,

C
z,

an
d

P
z)

•
M

or
e

po
si

tiv
ity

fo
r

pl
ea

sa
nt

an
d

un
pl

ea
sa

nt
pi

ct
ur

es
th

an
ne

ut
ra

l
pi

ct
ur

es
in

th
e

po
st

er
io

r
re

gi
on

s.
•

A
n

in
di

ca
tio

n
of

se
le

ct
iv

e
em

ot
io

na
l

pr
oc

es
si

ng
(re

su
lte

d
fro

m
th

e
m

ot
iv

at
io

na
lr

el
ev

an
ce

of
em

ot
io

na
l

pi
ct

ur
es

co
m

pa
re

d
to

ne
ut

ra
lo

ne
s)

.

14
Fe

m
al

e
–

18
–2

4
ye

ar
s

(C
on

tin
ue

d)

Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 12 August 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 1454

fpsyg-08-01454 August 22, 2017 Time: 17:25 # 13

Tyng et al. Emotional Influences on Learning and Memory

TA
B

LE
2

|C
on

tin
ue

d

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ve

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ra
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m
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af

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os
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e

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ci
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w

ith
en

ha
nc

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ea

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tiv
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am
pl

itu
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in
th

e
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ht
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rie
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cc

ip
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gi
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s.
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n

ar
ou

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ct
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as
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se
rv

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in

th
e

le
ft

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rie

to
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ip

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on
s

fo
r

bo
th

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ul
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vo

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rs

(1
9

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m

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al
e)

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vo

lu
nt

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rs

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1

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m

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al
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ea

lth
y

H
ea

lth
y

19
–2

7
ye

ar
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19
–2

9
ye

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ol

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.,
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03
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(P

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ar

fu
lv

s.
ne

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fe
ct

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on

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lf
ac

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pr

oc
es

si
ng

.

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R

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Fr

on
ta

l,
ce

nt
ra

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nd

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ce
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en
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pl
itu

de
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fle
ct

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n

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at

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ow

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,N
17

0
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as
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ns

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ts
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ay

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10

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at

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eu
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ffe
ct

on
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of

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d

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gh

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ro

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al

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le

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w
as

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ep

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rt

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ar

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re
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ef

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ct

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pa

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ic

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an

ts
(1

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m
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al

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ea

lth
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–

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lic

ht
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.,
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11
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ou
nd

(IA
D

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le

as
an

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pl
ea

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nt

,a
nd

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ud

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ry

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rt

ex
re

sp
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to

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ls
tim

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IR

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ud
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ex

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ot

h
pl

ea
sa

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un

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sa
nt

so
un

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to

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ea

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r

ac
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in

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ft

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pa

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m
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ea

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,I

nt
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ffe
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ic

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re

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;A
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ffe
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or

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;E
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re
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l;
fM

R
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fu
nc

tio
na

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m

ag
ne

tic
re

so
na

nc
e

im
ag

in
g;

fN
IR

S
,

fu
nc

tio
na

ln
ea

r-
in

fra
re

d
sp

ec
tr

os
co

py
;

P
FC

,
pr

ef
ro

nt
al

co
rt

ex
;

vm
P

FC
,

ve
nt

ro
m

ed
ia

lp
re

fro
nt

al
co

rt
ex

;
dm

P
FC

,
do

rs
om

ed
ia

lp
re

fro
nt

al
co

rt
ex

;
m

P
FC

,
m

ed
ia

lp
re

fro
nt

al
co

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ex

;
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LP
FC

,v
en

tr
ol

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er

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ro

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co
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ex
;L

P
P,

la
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po
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tiv
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po
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l;
LP

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,l

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co
m

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ex

;L
TM

,l
on

g-
te

rm
m

em
or

y;
EE

G
,e

le
ct

ro
en

ce
ph

al
og

ra
ph

y.

Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 13 August 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 1454

fpsyg-08-01454 August 22, 2017 Time: 17:25 # 14

Tyng et al. Emotional Influences on Learning and Memory

(Tataranni et al., 1999). 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.
Satiation was associated with increased rCBF uptake in the
bilateral vmPFC, the DLPFC, and the inferior parietal lobule.
These results imply that (i) subcortical regions associated with
emotion/motivation involved in hunger that signals distressing
feeling (discomfort, pain and anxiety) for the regulation of
food intake; and (ii) the PFC associated with inhibition of
inappropriate behavioral response involved in satiation that
signals excessive food consumption for a termination of meal.

In a study of emotional self-generation using PET noted
that the insular cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and
hypothalamus, as well as the cingulate cortex and nuclei
in the brainstem’s tegmentum, including PAG, parabrachial
nucleus, and substantia nigra maintained current homeostasis
by generating regulatory signals (Damasio et al., 2000). PET
scanning has also been used for neuroanatomical mapping of
emotions (Davidson and Irwin, 1999), emotional processing
(Choudhary et al., 2015), and cognitive functions (Cabeza and
Nyberg, 2000). 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.g., epilepsy and Alzheimer’s
disease), and heart diseases.

Electroencephalography (EEG)
Electroencephalography obtains high temporal resolution
in milliseconds, portable, less expensive, and non-invasive
techniques by attaching scalp electrodes to record brain electrical
activity. Moreover, numerous studies reported that EEG is
useful in mapping CNS cognitive and emotional processing. The
technique offers a comprehensive range of feature extraction
and analysis methods, including power spectral analysis, EEG
coherence, phase delay, and cross-power analysis. One study
examined changes in EEG oscillations in the amygdala during the
consolidation of emotionally aroused memory processing that
exhibited theta (4–8 Hz) activity (Paré et al., 2002), indicating
the facilitation of memory consolidation, improved retention of
emotional content, and enhanced memory recall. This finding
was later supported by the revelation of increased theta activity in
the right frontal (Friese et al., 2013) and right temporal cortices
(Sederberg et al., 2003) and consequently associated with the
successful encoding of new information. Another study (Buzsáki,
2002) revealed that theta oscillations were positively related to
the activation of the hippocampus represent the active brain
state during sensory, motor and memory-related processing. 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.

Electroencephalography studies have also revealed alpha
asymmetry over prefrontal regions during withdrawal/avoidance
processing. Electrophysiological responses showed increased
alpha-band activity in the right vs. left PFC when subjects viewed
film clips with withdraw-related negative emotional content
(Papousek et al., 2014). EEG alpha wave power is inversely related
to cortical activity, that is, a lower alpha power associated with
higher activity (inhibition). Because of this cortical inhibition
consideration, researcher (Davidson, 1988) introduces frontal
asymmetry index by computing a ratio of differences in log-
transformation power values between the left frontal and right

frontal alpha power or
log(alpha powerright)−log(alpha powerleft)

log(alpha powerright)+log(alpha powerleft)
, and the

selection of electrodes is the homologous pairs (F3-F4/F7-F8).
Thus, positive value indicates left frontal activity that associated
with positive emotion/approach motivation and negative value
indicates right frontal activity that associated with negative
emotion/withdrawal motivation. In other words, greater right
alpha power (right frontal activation ↓) than left alpha power
(left frontal activation ↑) results in left frontal activity and
vice versa. 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., 2010). Hence, these
findings indicate that EEG alpha asymmetry may be used to assess
“approach” (positive valence) vs. “withdrawal” (negative valence)
motivational processes and/or emotional responses during
learning. 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, 2017). Because of
inconsistencies of valence hypothesis and motivational direction
hypothesis, a study proposed asymmetry inhibition model of
alpha activity with two mechanisms of inhibitory executive
control to regulate emotional distraction processing: (i) left PFC
inhibits processing of negative/withdrawal-related distractors
and (ii) right PFC inhibits processing of positive/approach-
related distractors (Grimshaw and Carmel, 2014). 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.

Increased gamma oscillation in the neocortex and right
amygdala have been reported in response to emotionally arousing
pictures during learning and memory tasks undertaken by 148
right-handed female participants (Headley and Paré, 2013).
A more detailed study by Müller et al. (1999) reported increased
gamma potentials in the left frontal and temporal regions in
response to images having a negative valence, whereas increased
gamma-bands in the right frontal regions were observed in
responses to images with positive valence for 11 right-handed
male participants. During an emotionally positive experience,

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another study reported significantly increased EEG theta-alpha
coherence between prefrontal and posterior parietal regions
(Aftanas and Golocheikine, 2001). 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. Nonetheless, EEG
exhibits a relatively poor spatial resolution approximately 5 to
9 cm compared with fMRI and PET (Babiloni et al., 2001).
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., 1994)
for theoretical and experimental study) or integrating multiple
imaging modalities that provide complement information,
for instance EEG-fMRI and EEG-fNIRS (Dale and Halgren,
2001).

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
(fNIRS)
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. deoxygenated hemoglobin (deoxy-Hb)
using optodes (light emitters and detectors) placed on the scalp
(Villringer et al., 1993). 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., 1993), including exercise (Perrey, 2008),
cognitive workload (Durantin et al., 2014), psychiatric disorders
(Ehlis et al., 2014), emotional processing (Bendall et al., 2016),
and aging (Hock et al., 1995). One study used fNIRS to examine
the relationship between subjective happiness and emotional
changes (Oonishi et al., 2014). 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. Viewing unpleasant emotional stimuli accompanied
increased in oxy-Hb levels in the bilateral VLPFC while also

activating several regions in both the right VLPFC (BA45/47)
and left VLPFC (BA10/45/46/47). However, another fNIRS
study reported that viewing pleasant emotional stimuli was
associated with decreased oxy-Hb in the left DLPFC (BA46/10)
when affective images were presented for 6 s (Hoshi et al.,
2011). Thus, this study found an opposite pattern indicating
left hemisphere involvement in positive/approach processing
and right hemisphere involvement in negative/withdrawal
processing (Davidson, 1992; Davidson and Irwin, 1999).
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, 2004).
Another fNIRS study examined the relationship between
PFC function and cognitive control of emotion (Ozawa
et al., 2014). This was done by presenting emotional IAPS
pictures for 5.2 s, followed by the n-back task. 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.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE EFFECT OF
EMOTION ON LEARNING AND MEMORY

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.

Individual Differences
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, 2017), intellectual ability (Brackett et al., 2004), and
sex (Cahill, 2003). Moreover, sex hormones and personality
traits (e.g., extraversion and neuroticism) appear to influence
individual responses to emotional stimuli as well as modulate
emotional processing. Appropriate screening with psychological
testing as well as balancing experimental cohorts in terms
of sex can help reduce spurious results owing to individual
differences.

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Age-Related 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, 2010; Allard and Kensinger, 2014).
Consequently, the age of participants in a sample population
should be considered for both cognitive and emotional
studies.

Emotional Stimulus Selection
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, 1980; Barrett, 1998). The latter
include pictures from the IAPS database and words from
the ANEW database, which are both available for non-
commercial research. 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.

Self-assessment Techniques
There are numerous self-assessment techniques used to measure
individual emotional states (Bradley and Lang, 1994). The
most widely used techniques are the Self-Assessment Manikin
(SAM), the Semantic Differential (SD) scale, and the Likert
scale. 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. The Likert’s “x-point” scale allows participants
to rate their own emotional responses. 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., 1988). Thus,
selection of the most appropriate self-assessment technique is an
important part of the experimental design but can also become
an overwhelming task.

Selection of Brain Imaging Techniques
As mentioned above, the two major types of brain imaging
techniques EEG (direct) and fMRI/PET/fNIRS (indirect)
have respective advantages and disadvantages. To overcome
these limitations, simultaneous or combined dual-modality
imaging (EEG-fMRI or EEG-fNIRS) can now be implemented
for complementary data collection. 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.

Neurocognitive Research Design
The neuroscience of cognition and emotion requires appropriate
task designs to accomplish specific study objectives (Amin and
Malik, 2013). 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. Emotion has a “pop-out” effect that increases
attention and promotes bottom-up instinctual impact that
enhances awareness. 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. Therefore,
higher-level cognitive functions such as learning and memory,
appear to be generally guided by emotion, as outlined in the
Panksepp’s framework of brain processing (Panksepp, 1998).

Neuroimaging findings also indicate the involvement of
the PFC in emotional processing by indirectly influencing
WM and semantic memory (Kensinger and Corkin, 2003).
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, 2003). 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.
Moreover, functional neuroimaging investigations now include
single and/or combined modalities that obtain complementary
datasets that inform a more comprehensive overview of
neuronal activity in its entirety. For example, curiosity and
motivation promote learning, as it appears cognitive network

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become energized by the mesolimbic-mesocortical dopamine
system (generalized motivational arousal/SEEKING system). 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, 2011a). To emphasize, depression and anxiety
are the two most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders
associated with learning/memory impairment and pose negative
consequences that (i) limit the total amount of information that
can otherwise be learned, and (ii) inhibit immediate recall as well
as memory retention and retrieval of newly learned information.
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, 1997).

CONCLUDING REMARKS, OPEN
QUESTIONS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

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. Hence,
to understand how emotion influence learning and memory
requires understanding of an evolutionary consideration of the
nested hierarchies of CNS emotional-affective processes as well
as a large-scale network, including the midbrain’s PAG and
VTA, basal ganglia (amygdala and NAc), and insula, as well as
diencephalon (the cingulate and medial frontal cortices through
the lateral and medial hypothalamus and medial thalamus)
together with the MTL, including the hippocampus as well as
the entorhinal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and parahippocampal
cortices that responsible for declarative memories. Moreover, the
SEEKING system generates positive subjective emotional states-
positive expectancy, enthusiastic exploration, and hopefulness,
apparently, initiates learning and memory in the brain. All
cognitive activity is motivated from ‘underneath’ by basic
emotional and homeostatic needs (motivational drives) that
explore environmental events for survival while facilitating
secondary processes of learning and memory.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

CMT drafted this manuscript. CMT, HUA, MNMS, and ASM
revised this draft. All authors reviewed and approved this
manuscript.

FUNDING

This research work was supported by the HiCoE grant for CISIR
(Ref No. 0153CA-002), Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysia.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysia
for the financial support. 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.

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Conflict of Interest Statement: 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.

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