Immordino-Yang M.H., and Damasio, A. (2007)
We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education.
Mind, Brain & Education, 1, 1, 3-10.
Interrelationship of cognition & emotion
1. Patient data
Gives biological/neuroscience i.e. neuropsychological evidence for the interrelationship of cognition and emotion by demonstrating a dissociation between emotion and cognition.
The evidence
‘patients whose ability to make advantageous decisions became compromised’ comprehensive testing showed that not IQ or reasoning problem and that logic and knowledge was intact. But there was an emotional disturbance that included p3/9 ‘ diminished resonance of emotional reactions generally as well as specific compromise of social emotions, such as compassion, embarrassment and guilt. By compromising the possibility of evoking emotions associated with certain past situations, decision options and outcomes, the patients become unable to select the most appropriate response based on past experience’ ‘ do not notice others praise or disapproval’ KRO NVC as indicators of praise/disproval.
2. Developmental evidence Anderson et al, 1999 & Damasio, 2005.
(KRO ? link to callous stuff at CEN but then there is an incidence question)
p4/9 ‘ while adult onset patients know right from wrong in the lab they are unable to use this information to guide their behaviour, childhood-onset patients have apparently not learned right from wrong or the proper rules for social conduct’ (KRO importance of a role model?) i.e. ‘ without the ability to manipulate situations and to mark these situations as positive or negative from an affective point of view, these children fail to learn normal social behaviour’ and therefore don’t acquire the appropriate decision making behaviour’
Individual & social
Accepts and describes a distinction between individual & social p2/9 ‘ makes clear that the very neurobiological systems that support our social interactions and relationships are recruited for the often covert and private decision making that underlies much of our thought.’
Two hypotheses
1. p4/9 ‘ Because these findings underscore the critical role of emotion in bringing previously acquired knowledge to inform real-world decision making in social contexts, they suggest the intriguing possibility that emotional processes are required for the skills and knowledge acquired in school to transfer to novel situations in real life’
2. ‘It may be via the emotional route that the social influences of culture come to shape learning, thought and behaviour’ KRO a large conceptual leap without any direct supporting neuroscience. It also does not have sufficient recognition of the complexity of brain processes.
A physiological account of emotion and cognition from automatic responses to morality, creativity, high reason and culture.
And ultimately relevance to Education
P5/9 uses example of the behaviours involved when an ant carries food to its nest as a ‘primitive instance of cognition composed of complex packages of innate responses’ i.e. the ant behaves in this way in order ‘to promote survival and efficiency’ then goes on to say that ‘humans perceive that efficiency as well being and pleasure’
‘one could argue that the chief purpose of Education is to cultivate children’s building of repertoires of cognitive and behavioural strategies and options’ with ethical decision making and morality as the ultimate manifestation i.e. ‘able to move beyond the opportunistic ambivalence of nature’ ‘the hallmark of ethical action is the inhibition of immediately advantageous ( KRO delay as important part of the ‘emotional’ feedback loop) or profitable solutions in the favour of what is good or right within our own cultural frame of reference’
Damasio’s view of emotion
“Emotion, then, is a basic form of decision making, a repertoire of know-how and actions that allows people to respond differently in different situations. The more advanced cognition becomes, the more high level reasoning supports the customization of these responses, both in thought and action. With evolution and development, the specifications of conditions to which people respond and the modes of response at their disposal become increasingly nuanced’
‘emotions entail the perception of an emotionally competent trigger, a situation either real or imagined, that has the power to induce an emotion’
“Emotions help us to direct our reasoning into the sector of knowledge that is relevant to the current problem’ i.e. emotion as a rudder (KRO emotion as a memory trigger)
