It would be assumed that we would read the words the same, as a whole and not as letters, but I can clearly recall times where I could not distinguish a word that is scrambled on its own – yet I can read this without any difficulty. I am very curious though as to why something such as this, structured in a sentence, is so easy to distinguish, while if you had per say a list of words and they’re all scrambled, those singular words are not quite as simple. I look back to not thinking twice about this script and reading it correctly as written, yet now I can’t stop thinking about it because of how it connects to this alternate process. Analyzing this further now with a growing knowledge of top-down processing is baffling and honestly so neat. When looking at top-down processing in relation to this script from Cambridge, a step towards reasoning just clicks. It’s funny actually, because I remember recently seeing that exact same post on my own Facebook page, reading it the script, thinking little to nothing of how I could read it and then continuing to scroll away. Your post actually helped bring some perspective to the process for me just now, as I was intrigued by the example from Cambridge you have described. I appreciate your post about top-down processing a lot, as it makes relatable references and is a common interest point of mine. Post navigation Previous post: ← Operant Conditioning and Autism Next post: Learning a New Language → This entry was posted in Uncategorized on Septemby Tyesha Gomez. MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Accessed 9 Sept. Top-down processing gives us the ability to use our prior knowledge and expectations when facing a stimulus.ĭavis, Matt. Without top-down processing I believe that our life would be filled with confusion and repeated actions. This process allows us to make sense of the world around us and lets us use our past experiences to determine our actions. Top-down processing is interesting to me because it taught me how our background knowledge can base how we perceive things.
The sensation of me burning myself is bottom-up processing but the experience and knowledge of not to play with matches because of what is does is top-down processing.Īfter learning about top-down processing I have noticed many different scenarios in my life where I was using this process.
Somehow, I figured out how to light the match not realizing that the match created fire and that fire is hot, I burnt myself. I did not know what matches were at the time and being a curious child, I decided to play with them. I was about five or six years old when I came across a pack of matches sitting on the dining room table. We make sense of what seems like gibberish because of our expectations of what the whole word should be.Īnother example that I thought of was a personal experience that I encountered with matches and fire. We can read this because of our prior knowledge of the English language.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”Īt the time, I wondered what caused this to be so easy and as I was learning about top-down processing it all came together. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. A few years ago, I was scrolling down my timeline on Facebook and I came across a shared post. One example of top-down processing that I have is from the University of Cambridge Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. We sometimes do not realize that our brain is using this process when in action. Top-down process is fascinating because it can happen unconsciously. I believe that this process is important because it allows us to make sense out of information that may seem unclear and it allows us to think and use our memory before a stimulus is presented toward us. How our brain makes use of information that has already been brought into the brain based off prior knowledge is referred to as top-down processing. In this week’s lesson, we learned a lot about perception and how the brain processes information.