Top-down vs Bottom-up Processing - Independent vs Environment-driven thoughts

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    • Published: 06-18-2016 07:50 am
      Updated: 06-18-2016 07:51 am
    • The Top-Down Network should be associated with independent, self-directed thoughts. Intuition should require you to think on your own how to best complete a task instead of consulting books, instructions, written sources, or feedback from people around you. Sensing should be the instinctive, sensation driven responses. It should be related to repeating and acting on sensory input, following orders, following instructions, repeating what is said to you. Bottom-up processing should be the most related to involuntary actions and impulse driven responses. Acting on input from the five senses.

      We previously associated bottom-up processing and top-down processing with introversion and extroversion but later found we have begun to associate it with dopamine d2 receptors in striatum. On these grounds, I would like to suggest top-down processing and bottom-up processing is more associated with sensing and intuition. This means we start associating Sensing, Feeling, Thinking and Intuition with networks and cognitive orientation of information, and introversion, extroversion, judging and perceiving by how chemicals regulate our attention and our behavior, which creates an interesting distinction.

      Some defintions of Top-down vs Bottom-up processing:

      Source: ExplorableBottom-Up ProcessingIn the bottom-up processing approach, perception starts at the sensory input, the stimulus. (!) Thus, perception can be described as data-driven. For example, there is a flower at the center of a person's field. The sight of the flower and all the information about the stimulus are carried from the retina to the visual cortex in the brain. The signal travels in one direction.

      (Suggesting it is the environment that drives our response and our experience of information) Much of bottom-up processing driven responses are suggested to be mostly involuntary. Bottom-up processing carries minimal data loss and we can more accurately describe what is happening around us. Top-down processing filters out things that go against our contexts and beliefs.Top-Down ProcessingTop-down processing is defined as the development of pattern recognition (!) through the use of contextual information. For instance, you are presented with a paragraph written with difficult handwriting. It is easier to understand what the writer wants to convey if you read the whole paragraph rather than reading the words in separate terms. The brain may be able to perceive and understand the gist of the paragraph due to the context supplied by the surrounding words.

      (Suggesting it is our abstract or contextual, self-derived definitions that allow us to interpret the world around us) Top-down processing is a voluntary, self-derived attention that starts in your own thoughts and beliefs. These beliefs then allow you to interpret the world around you. Top down processing allows us to generalize on statements.
    • Published: 06-20-2016 07:31 am
    • I think we need distinguish top-down and bottom-up modulation of attention from top-down and bottom-up processing.

      Top-down modulation of attention
      Is controlling attention towards some internal goal or task (find a pencil)

      Bottom-up modulation of attention
      Is focusing on something because it draws your attention. "Oh that pencil reminds me of that I was about to get a pencil but forgot about it."

      ----

      Top-down processing
      Applying previous knowledge and thinking about information

      Bottom-up processing
      Taking information at face value without applying previous knowledge or thinking about it
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