Emotions, Stress, and Learning

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Emotions, Stress, and Learning
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• Basic Process of Learning
• Encoding
• Storage
• Retrieval

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• Encoding
• Colors Items and Events with the Emotion
• May Only Color Those Elements that Were
  Emotionally Charged (Kensiunger Schacter, 2006)

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• Storage
• Role of Sleep

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• Retrieval
• Recall vs. Recognition
• Context and Retrieval Cues

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Effects of Emotions on Learning
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• Emotional Memories Tend to Be Easier to Remember
• Bradley et al. (1992) Emotionally-Laden Images
• Neutral (e.g., Umbrella)
• Positive (Beach at Sunset)
• Negative (Attacking Snake)
• Concluded that Arousal Important in Memory
  Formation
• Blocking Emotions/Arousal Eliminates Benefit
• E.g., Cahill et al. (1994)

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• Fear
• Much-Studied in Its Relationship with Learning
• Fear Itself Can Be Associated with Other Things
  (Stimuli)
• Happens at a Low Neuronal Level
• And Thus Can Occur Largely Without Cognitive Input

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• This General Pattern Is True of All Innate,
  Family-Level Emotions
• Affects Encoding and Recall
• State-Dependent Learning and Recall

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Stress and Learning

• Yerkes-Dodson (1908)

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• Good Effects of Stress
• Increase Arousal and Attention
• And Performance on a Wide Range of Tasks
• Public Speaking
• Mental Arithmetic
• Memorizing Word Lists

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• Bad Effects of Stress Phasic
• Orchestrated by the Sympathetic Nervous System
• Increased Heart Rate
• Increased Blood Flow to Muscles
• And Away from Digestion and Reproduction
• Greater Emphasis on Hearing than Sight

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• Can Impair Encoding Recall
• E.g., Through Neuronal Communication in Learning
  and Memory Regions
• E.g., Baram (2008) Severe phasic stress can
  cause rapid disintegration of hippocampal
  dendritic spines
• Degeneration in Senescence (Brunson et al. 2005)

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• Early-Life Stress
• May Prepare One to Learn Better Under Future
  Stressful Conditions (e.g., Oomen et al. 2010)
• Off-Set by Maternal Care and Involvement (e.g.,
  Korosi et al. 2010)

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• Bad Effects of Stress Chronic
• Primarily Modulated by Hormones
• E.g., Cortisol, Which
• Releases Fat Stores Increases Metabolism
• Long-Term Elevation of Cortisol Related to
• Heart Disease
• Ulcers, Insulin resistance
• Hypertension
• Delayed Neuronal Growth

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• Severe, Short-Term Stress May Actually Destroy
  Memories
• Cushings Disease
• Cortisol Continually, Excessively Secreted
• Suffers Display Cognitive Deficits and Memory
  Impairment

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Combating Stress

• Practice the Situation
• When Can't Practice Actual, Visualization Can Help

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• Write about Your Worries
• Gerardo Beilock (2012) Found that writing about
  worries for just 10 minutes immediately before
  exam led to higher performance than either
  writing about something else or writing nothing.
• Especially useful for habitual chokers
• Similar to the use of facing ones fears in
  therapies for patients with PTSD

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• Maintaining a Warm, Non-Hostile Classroom
• Or Whatever Room It Is Where the Test Is Taken

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