In general, top-down processing-information processing based on previous knowledge or schemata-allows us to make inferences: to ‘perceive’ or ‘know’ more than is contained in the data. In what sense do we go “beyond the information given”? # After one gains some experience reading comics, these cues are processed automatically one is hardly aware of them. Beads of sweat flying off a character show anxiety or physical exertion. A sudden idea may be shown as a light bulb lighting up over a character’s head. A silent thought is shown inside a broken line. Spoken language is shown inside a bubble made out of a continuous line. Movement is shown by lines and little puffs of dust trailing after shoes. Tiny popping bubbles, for example, show drunkenness. Cartoonists have a set of conventions for conveying information about mental and physical states. Simple cues are used to suggest complex feelings and emotions. In what respect do cartoons rely upon top-down processing? #Ĭomics and cartoons provide many examples of top-down processing. You may have noticed that from the beginning, but for most, being told there is another image, will alert your brain to search for the pattern. Similarly, the right image can either be interpreted as a face looking left, or an Eskimo figure entering a dark space. Instead of a face, look at the image again, and you will see a saxophone player wearing a big hat. The picture is labelled as “face” telling your brain what it is supposed to see. In the left image, the floating blob becomes an eye, and from the eye, we construct a nose and a mouth. However, our brain is good at detecting faces, which, from a bio-sociological perspective, is among the most important stimuli in the world. From a bottom-up perspective, you should see a collection of meaningless blobs and lines. This is a form of top-down processing, in which a schema influences interpretation of the data.įigure 2: The face – your brain adds meaning what you perceive based on what it knows or expects.Ībove is another example of top-down processing. They had been ‘set’ for one or the other interpretation by the preceding slides. Depending on whether they saw animals or faces in previous slides, subjects reported seeing either (1) a rat or (2) a man wearing glasses.

Subjects saw this picture after viewing earlier slides that showed line drawings of (1) animals, or (2) faces. A classic example is the Rat Man of Bugelski and Alampay (1961).įigure 1: The Rat Man of Bugelski and Alampay (1961) Top-down processing is shown by the phenomena of set or expectancy. Top-down processing occurs any time a higher-level concept influences your interpretation of lower level sensory data. Larger scale or more abstract concepts are referred to as higher level, while concrete details (such as the input from the senses) are referred to as lower level. A schema is a pattern formed earlier in your experience. This is called schema-driven or top-down processing. In many situations, however, your knowledge or expectations will influence perception. What is schema-driven or top-down processing? # You want the interpretation of a scene to be determined mostly by information from the senses, not by your expectations. Perception must be largely data-driven because it must accurately reflect events in the outside world. When an interpretation emerges from the data, this is called data-driven or bottom-up processing. What is data-driven or bottom-up processing? # Your brain applies what it knows and what it expects to perceive and fills in the blanks. Top-down processing, on the other hand, refers to perception driven by cognition.

Bottom-up refers to how we construct the image from the smallest sensory information pieces. What you see is based only on the sensory information coming in. In other words, if I flash a random picture on the screen, your eyes detect the features, your brain pieces it together, and you perceive the image. Bottom-up processing refers to processing sensory information as it is coming in. There are two general processes involved in sensation and perception.

Top down processing example