Track to Safety (I) - Neuroscience proves the importance of emotions in learning

The information we have about the human brain, the organ responsible for learning, has been significantly increased thanks to the development of new brain visualisation techniques. According to the latest scientific advances, neuroscience has discovered that without emotions, there is no learning.

Emotions keep curiosity alive, allow us to communicate and are essential in reasoning and decision-making processes. Positive emotions facilitate recollection and learning, while with emotions such as chronic stress, the amygdala, one of the key regions of the brain's limbic system or "emotional brain" obstructs the flow of information from the hippocampus to the prefrontal cortex.

We are now starting to learn that the emotion – cognition tandem is an inseparable tandem. This leads us to ponder the importance of emotions for the person who is learning. Emotions and the release of dopamine, closely linked to motivation, contribute to direct the behaviour of people, which is based on the needs and specific internal desires of each person, towards the search for pleasure. This is in addition to the research that proves that the individual's freedom to decide when they want to receive positive stimuli is key to be able to connect with people. In this way, there is an effective recording of the information, an ability to memorise, internalise it and effectively transfer it to the person and their behaviour.

"Pleasure technologies" (Steven Pinker) such as films, music, video games, etc. are forms of entertainment that use methods to activate our reward system. Thus, we enter a positive motivational state where everything flows, increasing our focus on tasks as well as our absolute concentration.

GAMIFICATION is related to the above. The technological revolution that is being applied to different fields in companies, among them, staff training. Gamification is a philosophy that consists of extracting all the dynamics and mechanics of "pleasure technologies" that have an influence on our motivational system, with the aim of influencing behaviours and facilitating learning.

TRACK TO SAFETY, the new training proposal aimed at railway operators, incorporates these techniques and applies them specifically to the training of engine drivers. Track to Safety seeks to be the ideal complement so that companies can continue to train engine drivers beyond the simulator or regulated training, thus achieving 100% comprehensive training for these professionals. Find out more at www.discovertracktosafety.com and in upcoming news.