Affective Learning Lab
A short history of how learning actually works
The essential arc, eleven landmarks. From the split that misled us, to the biology that puts feeling back at the centre.
1637
Mind split from body · Descartes (philosophy)
Where the wrong picture starts: feeling cast as the enemy of clear thought.
1885
We forget nonsense · Ebbinghaus
The forgetting curve, built by stripping the meaning out on purpose.
1932
Memory rebuilds · Bartlett
Remembering is reconstruction, informed by social and cultural factors, not replay of a stored copy.
1969
A story beats a list · Bower & Clark
Turn the same words into a story, and recall jumps sevenfold.
1994
No good decisions without feeling · Damasio
Strip out emotion and reasoning stalls; the body guides judgement.
1995
Memories can be planted · Loftus
A quarter of people came to remember an event that never happened.
2004
Emotion stamps memory in · McGaugh
Arousal at the moment of learning tells the brain what is worth keeping.
2011
The triple network · Menon
One switch, the salience network, tips between focus and reflection.
2012
Rest is not idleness · Immordino-Yang
Inward, reflective time is where meaning and understanding form.
2024
Meaning-making thought develops people · Gotlieb (longitudinal)
Deep, meaning-making thought predicts brain network growth, which predicts identity, which predicts life satisfaction.
2026
The teacher’s story predicts the teaching · Kundrak (correlational)
How a teacher sees the job, not years of experience, relates to its quality.