Emotional experiences have been known to be better remembered than non-emotional experiences.

This expects why I can remember very traumatic experiences from my childhood and forget about a course I just read yesterday. I always believed in the potency of our emotions as humans, as it influences not just memories but decisions.
As regards learning I think it plays a vital role and most time I try to be in the same emotional state I was during a lecture to recall some of the details. Usually, fun classes are easier to remember than boring ones because the lecturer engages our emotions positively. So you can say it counts--our emotions are engaged in our learning process and they can facilitate memory recollection.