**3. Emotional influence on cognitive functions**

Cognitive performance is affected by a person's emotional status, and neural processing resources are preferentially allocated to events that have emotional

significance. Internally and externally triggered emotions modulate information processing in brain regions that mediate various cognitive functions, focusing on perception and attention, learning and memory, decision making and social cognition. From an evolutionary standpoint, neural systems that support thinking developed in part to solve problems that were made salient by emotional considerations, so it is not surprising that emotions are intimately intertwined with higher cortical functions. Thus, information processing always occurs amid a backdrop of emotional states, social goals and motivational incentives. Understanding, in neural terms, how cognitive processes are shaped by these influences will greatly broaden thinking about how the brain works.
