Contextual learning is highly limbic. It is why “presence” is so important
By Christina Testa and James Stellar
Context is everything when considering a career or a job. Of course the theme (e.g. public health worker) is what one drives for, but when you get there, the circumstances matter (e.g. is it working with people on programs or in a lab on screening for a disease). Why? We think it has something to do with the limbic system communicating the feel of the job, the co-workers, the environment, and all that comes with actually being on the job site. That kind of judgement from the faces of other people who convey emotions, to the outcome of the day’s work which can convey value (or not), is limbic. It takes the cerebral or cognitive plans that one had, perhaps from before the direct internship or job experience, and gives them a value solidity that lets the person know they are in the right field of work or career.
A 2012 paper highlights the role of a neural system based on interactions of the frontal cortex, striatum, amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and the brainstem that exerts an important limbic system or emotional influence on behavior. As the authors say “These structures, including the ventral striatum and its limbic inputs, creates an emotional system that engages postures, attention, and automatic responses rather than selecting specific actions. It is important for engaging operant responses and influences behavioral flexibility.” They proposed the limbic system serves to contextually gate responses to stimuli based on associated valence. They observed the hippocampus has “place fields” where activation increases in specific locations and environments. This concludes that the hippocampus is critical for spatial, contextual, and rational/configural associations. This processing affects many types of behaviors like spatial navigation, responding to reward, fear response, and response inhibition.
A more recent 2023 paper outlines the importance of the limbic memory circuit. It states that the environment (or context) is a powerful cue in memory retrieval. Neural representations of the context provide a mechanism for efficiently retrieving relevant memories while avoiding interference memories from other contexts. The findings of this study concluded that encoding contextual information to support context-dependent memory retrieval is a key function of the limbic memory circuit. This study outlines that context plays a profound role in memory and learned information is bound to learning context.
It is clear from past research that contextual learning is essential for responses and behavior and that the environment plays an important role in spatial and contextual associations. We think that this is precisely why presence is so important in the professional environment. Without the context, emotional processes from the limbic system would not be at play to indicate to an individual if they are in the right environment or career path. These processes are limbic and play into the decisions we make and the emotions we feel when on the job or internship site, using contextual cues.
Consider that CT has had a few internships as a public health worker, part of a lab doing research and as part of a public health department. Both of these experiences were in person where she went into her internships everyday. Through her being present at the job site, the environment, the job, interacting with co-workers, and her own tasks and responsibilities allowed her to feel the value of her role as an intern. Her presence was known in these environments and her individual role in each job, whether it was in the Bloodborne Viruses Lab or on the Follow-up team in the Newborn Screening Department of the Wadsworth Laboratory at the NY State Department of Public health. This experience also gave her a great sense of value and belonging. The limbic system is at play here by using previous cognitive processes to assign value from these experiences as well as determine behaviors and feelings toward the contextual environment.
To go back to the often-stated principle in this blog series, if the neocortex and its abstract logic and symbolic processes understands the patterns and processes at the workplace and in a career path, it is the limbic system that generates the value input that helps the person make the choice that fits them. The whole concept of “fit” in choosing a career path (something that is critical to a college student starting out) is massively affected by the input that comes from presence in the workplace. It is true that students can get some of this in the reactions to information in their classes in college and from talking to peers but there is nothing like being on the site, interacting with the other people there, and getting the feel of the place. Like the old saying goes, “Try before you buy.”
Finally, we would like to conclude by saying that this sense of belonging is so important when navigating where a graduate student (or any student) “fits” in the professional world when on their career path journey. Contextual learning offers an important perspective to the individual and their environment plays an important role to form these contextual associations. Presence in the workplace emphasizes that sense of value an individual can develop. Being present on the job site is the most effective way to achieve the value and purpose that is so important for a graduate student intern as they enter the professional world. From here, contextual learning can further lead the student down the path of professionalism as they embark on their career.
