Peschken Juan, Hahn Lukas Alexander, Pusch Roland, Rose Jonas
Neural Basis of Learning, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Commun Psychol. 2025 May 24;3(1):83. doi: 10.1038/s44271-025-00261-2.
The saying "context is everything" underscores the importance of interpreting things, be they quotes, events, actions, or stimuli, not in isolation but in the light of a bigger picture - their context. This is evident even in fundamental forms of learning such as extinction learning where, in contextual renewal, an extinguished response reoccurs if the context is changed. But what exactly is context? Is context given by stimuli with inherent properties making them context or, what are the circumstances that allow a stimulus to become "contextual"? Even though the answer may seem intuitively trivial, the literature only provides competing and vague definitions. Using a modified ABA paradigm, we assessed how competing stimuli induced contextual renewal during extinction learning in seven pigeons (Columba livia). Furthermore, we controlled the timing of these stimuli and found it to be crucial; with the right contiguity, even small local stimuli resulted in the strongest contextual renewal. This result challenges definitions of context as 'a backdrop where learning occurs'. Instead, we propose that context can be understood mechanistically as a learned stimulus property. Therefore, context truly is everything and anything.
“情境就是一切”这句谚语强调了理解事物的重要性，无论是引用、事件、行为还是刺激，都不应孤立地看待，而应结合更宏观的背景——它们的情境来理解。这一点在诸如消退学习等基本学习形式中也很明显，在情境更新中，如果情境发生变化，已消退的反应会再次出现。但究竟什么是情境呢？情境是由具有固有属性的刺激所赋予的，使其成为情境，还是说，是什么样的情况使得一个刺激能够成为“情境性的”呢？尽管答案可能在直观上看似微不足道，但文献中只提供了相互矛盾且模糊的定义。我们使用改良的ABA范式，评估了七种鸽子（家鸽）在消退学习过程中竞争性刺激如何引发情境更新。此外，我们控制了这些刺激的时间，发现这至关重要；在适当的连续性条件下，即使是小的局部刺激也会导致最强的情境更新。这一结果挑战了将情境定义为“学习发生的背景”的观点。相反，我们提出情境可以从机制上理解为一种习得的刺激属性。因此，情境确实就是一切，无所不包。
