Bottom Up Top Down
- Brian Lynn Bentley
- Apr 6, 2015
- 3 min read
From the collection of my early works. January 30th
Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing
Brian Lynn Bentley
Introductory Psychology
Colorado Technical University Online
Abstract
I was the first generation to grow up with computers all our lives we the Generation X from 2nd Grade to middle aged. This was before point and click and ready-made purchasable or downloadable Programs. In order to use the computer you had to understand how it works. You had to type line By line into the computer, anywhere between a few lines to thousands of lines of code in. This is Bottom up Processing. The opposite in Top down processing in a computer is that the Computer expects certain information it already knows how to interpret the new information and if it gets something it’s not expecting it will react using its top down processing and give you an error code. That reaction will lead you to re inputting new information so it understands what you just told it.
"Eleanor “Jackie” Gibson died December 30, 2002 at the age of 92. Gibson was an expert in experimental Psychology, who had made many significant contributions to the fields of perception, infant development, and reading." She was a major proponent of bottom-up processing "perception is not subject to hypothesis."( Eleanor Gibson, 1966)
Bottom Up Top Down
Starting with Bottom Up processing Data driven information Sensory input in a human would be inputting information though the five senses visual, auditory, Touch Taste and smell. Also known as Sensation Your brain collects this information and interprets the resulting actions for example; you are minding your own business talking to a friend about a party. When all of a sudden you hear in the distance the sound of a bat crack and tenuous hear someone shout “watch out!" So you heard new information with the shout which makes you look. When you look you see a baseball coming directly at you. So you immediate process this new bottom up information resulting in a reaction do you Suck run or stand there like an idiot and get hit in the head by the fly ball?
So the similarity between bottom up processing in your brain and a computer is a computer has "senses" like a keyboard, mouse a camera a Wi-Fi and other peripheral. That takes in new information from its "Senses". You type all this information into the computer and the computer reacts to the new information. Outputting results from the input, or a reaction to the information that the computer had processed.
Bottom up processing is collecting information from collecting information from outside information Data Driven leads Sensations that leads to Cogitation which results in Perception or how you see the information and how you react to it. A leading advocate of top down processing is Professor Richard Gregory, who died on May 17 aged 86, was an experimental psychologist who specialized in perceptions sensations illusion and a researcher into artificial intelligence.
Top down processing is recognizing patterns in your mind expecting information to be constant. An example for you or me would be a complicated puzzle. We are putting a thousand piece puzzles together and in our mind we know what they want the puzzle to look like. So we look for patterns. Let’s start with all the edge pieces then the cloud pieces and so on looking for a pattern that will eventually match the images that is in your head also looking for the right color and the right shape that will fit into the pattern of the other puzzle pieces. This compares to the top down processing in a computer a program is running and you have to input. For example words that starts with start with vowel and end. So now the program is expecting you to put in a pattern of words that meet that criteria or it either gives you and error or ignores it completely.
In Appreciation: Eleanor Gibson. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2015, from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2003/april-03/in-appreciation-eleanor-gibson.html
(n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2015, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7760763/Professor-Richard-Gregory.html
Visual Perception | Simply Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved April 6, 2015, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/perception-theories.html
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