The amygdala, along with related areas..., plays a crucial role in coordinating perceptions with memory and behavior. These regions are especially sensitive to social interactions.

For "full" emotional communication, one person needs to allow his state of mind to be influenced by that of the other.

Internal mental experience is not the product of a photographic process. Internal reality is in fact constructed by the brain as it interacts with the environment in the present, in the context of its past experiences and expectancies of the future. At the level of perceptual categorizations, we have reached a land of mental representations quite distant from the layers of the world just inches away from their place inside the skull. This is the reason why each of us experiences a unique way of minding the world. (pp. 166-167)

Early experience shapes the structure and function of the brain. This reveals the fundamental way in which gene expression is determined by experience.

We are always in a perpetual state of being created and creating ourselves. (p. 221)

...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.

The amygdala, along with related areas..., plays a crucial role in coordinating perceptions with memory and behavior. These regions are especially sensitive to social interactions.