Context is the environment or situation in which something exists or occurs. The human mind uses context to manage a massive amount of information from a myriad of different situations, such as work, family, friends, and community.  Using context, people quickly decipher what information is relevant in a given situation.  As people, we can recognize the contexts we are in, know what information is applicable to each context, and derive information from each context.

For example, when a computer store clerk asks, "Can I help you?" and you answer, "burner" the clerk will immediately take you to the CD and DVD recorder section. On the surface this exchange may appear elementary, but the simplicity belies just how complex and advanced human communications really are. Both you and the clerk used context to enrich the word "burner". From the clerk's perspective, she used the computer store's context in conjunction with the word "burner" to decipher your meaning. Stove burners, Bunsen burners, and wood burners were all out of the question. Besides, because your interaction was in the context of a store, the clerk knew that you would be limited to examining and perhaps buying the merchandise. From your perspective, you knew that in a computer store, the word "burner", without further information, would result in exactly the information you sought. Using context you and the clerk were able to transform ambiguity into exactly the right information.

Context processing is essential to the human mind. In fact, context processing is so important that researchers have found its loss or impairment has been linked to the cognitive problems of aging and schizophrenia. While context is critical to human mental function, it is absent from the modern information technology infrastructure.