Top-down processing also enables us to make less work of the cognitive path between what we perceive and their meaning. There is much information around us and we are always perceiving multiple things. Top-down processing by simplifying the way we understand our sensory perceptions also serves as a positive function. Positive and Negatives of Top-Down Processing

Those words in the letter are now just smudges but you are still able to read the letter fully using top-down processing.Īs you use the context of the sentences and words and by utilizing your prior knowledge of reading and context you comprehend the meaning of the message written in the letter. Taking into account another example, suppose you receive an important letter related to your job but there are few parts or text of the letter smeared with drops of water. This is also known as the superiority effect, which is a very useful tool to have in everyday life. Number of experiments taken out on different groups of participants have shown that when they were presented by either a word or a brief letter, the participants when asked later on were able to identify the word more accurately.Īlthough word had more visual stimuli then the letter but the context of the word helped participants in remembering it accurately. One of the areas where this example has been demonstrated in our daily identification of letters and reading. Top-down processing also helps us to understand the things we perceive in our daily routines using our senses. If our brain does not implement top-down processing all of our senses will be overwhelmed with the information they need to process. If we start paying attention to each and every bit of this information we will not be able to do anything else, here top-down processing comes into play and helps us understand the perception of the object by streamlining a process that relies on the context of the information and our pre-existing knowledge. Our five senses are taking in information continuously as at any given time we are taking in information through our eyes or experiencing different smells, taste, sounds or feeling through touch. Top-down processing is one of the most important factors that influence our interaction with the environment around us on a daily basis. If the hypothesis we came at is correct we can build up on this combination of our senses and knowledge constructively but if our hypothesis is wrong it might lead towards perceptual errors. So in this scenario, when we see something new or we don’t know of, we don’t only rely on our senses to identify it but we also rely on our existing knowledge and past experiences to create a hypothesis of what that thing might be. He suggested that the visual information that is perceived by the eye is lost by 90% before it can even reach the brain. The main claim of his study was that perception conceived by our mind is constructive.Īccording to his study while working when we perceive something or some idea we must rely on our prior knowledge and on the context of the situation to correctly interpret the perception.Īccording to the study given by Gregory, perception can also be said as a process of hypothesis testing. The concept of top-down processing was introduced by a psychologist named Richard Gregory in 1970. Another example of top down processing in everyday life may be when we read something with spelling mistakes but still know what is being said because the subject is familiar. One top-down processing example from everyday life is the stroop effect, in which when we read a color name written in a different color, we tend to name the wrong thing.

Top down processing example