Emotional learning is an adaptative mechanism permitting to respond appropriately to environmental stimuli. However, psychological determinants of emotional learning are unclear. Based on appraisal theories, we proposed that relevance detection modulates emotional learning, and more precisely, that self-relevance influences fear learning. We predicted (i) faster and (ii) larger acquisition, and (iii) greater resistance to extinction of the conditioned response to self-relevant stimuli. We operationalized self-relevance by manipulating emotion and gaze direction of synthetic dynamic facial expressions during differential aversive conditioning. Results provided mixed evidence for our hypotheses. Critically, we revealed faster acquisition of the conditioned response to angry faces with direct compared to averted gaze, and greater resistance to extinction of the conditioned response to fearful faces with averted relative to direct gaze...