Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sensation and Perception Post #1

Over the next couple of weeks we will be examining a very fascinating topic, Sensation and Perception.  How we take in information from our senses and process that information is extremely important to understanding how the mind works and examines information.  Today we discussed bottom-up processing and top-down processing and selective attention.  For your post, I want you to give me an example of top-down and bottom-up processing working together (not one from the book or class) and then explain the importance of selective attention and the affects it has on both.  This is due Wednesday morning by 9am.

3 comments:

  1. Let's visualize that we're walking down the street. You are subconsciously catagorizing passerby as either female or male. An ambiguous figure walks toward you. With bottom-up processing, you notice the color clothing the person is wearing, the width of their shoulders, and whether or not the person has breasts.. With Top-Down processing, we notice the person's facial expressions, pitch of their voice and read the name on their nametag. In this case, the person has on a pink jacket, small shoulders, breasts, delicate/ feminine features, a high voice and their name is Isabelle.
    Selective attention is important because it allows our brain to focus only on neccessary information instead of overstimulating us. However, inattention to other stimuli can hinder a person- ie, a person focused on a video game may not notice a mass murderer sneaking up behind them. Effects on Processing, Bottom-Up: The brain processes 40 bits of information per second, although the senses take in 11,000,000 bits of information per second. The 40 bits that we percieve are the fundamental parts that will help us quickly and efficiently discern what an object is. Effects on Processing, Top-Down: Only fundamental information that will let us quickly percieve the new information will be recognized- ie, if you see an apple at lunch, you will not think of an apple falling, sparking Newton's law of gravitation, nor will you think of the company Apple, etc. Instead, you will feel your stomach churn, mouth water, imagine the taste of the apple when you bite into it, and will decide to eat the apple for lunch. ~Marissa Miller

    ReplyDelete
  2. One example of bottom-up and top-down processing working together is when you drink coffee. In bottom up processing, we would taste it and smell it and make a complete thought based on our sensory input. If someone had never had coffee before, they wouldn't have any assumptions of it. This would be true bottom-up processing. This works together with top-down. Someone might remember drinking coffee and feeling really good later. They associate this feeling with drinking coffee. This would be top down processing. Another example might be if someone drank coffee and burned their tongue. Then they might have bad top-down perceptions of coffee based on this memory of burning themself. Selective attention affects bottom-up perception because we are not always conscious of what our senses are recieving. Someone may not be paying full attention to the coffee they are drinking and not notice that this particular kind is nasty. This may be influenced by top-down perception because if someone generally likes coffee then they have good perceptions associated with it. That means that when they have coffee they assume good things about it before they have taken the first sip. This may cause someone who normally likes coffee to not notice that this particular kind isn't good. This can also work in reverse from bottom-up perception. If someone has never had coffee before and the first time they drink coffee it isn't good, then they have made bottom-up perceptions that coffee isn't good. This may influence their top-down perceptions because they may think that all coffee is bad just because the first time they had it, they didn't like it. Then if they had a good coffee later and selective attention caused them to not pay close attention to what they were drinking, they might drink a coffee that was actually good and think it's bad. -JSP

    ReplyDelete
  3. When reading a book such as, Poisonwood Bible, we us bottom-up processing to interpret the words on the page and read them and decipher what these words mean and recieve the sensory information for our eyes. Then with top-down processing working with bottom-up, as we read we think about the different meanings of the words, we also think about the meaning of the story as a whole and think of connections we have with it, ie. in Poisonwood Bible it is about exerting Relgion on people, so we think about religion, and our views on religion as we read. Selective Attention is important because we aren't always concious of all of our sensory information we recieve in a given time, we only focus on the ones that we have our mind on. So while reading Poisonwood Bible, during bottom-processing, selective attention will only have us focusing on the words we read and not how hot it is, how our hand is holding the book and etc. In top-down processing, while reading The Poisonwood Bible, selective attention will only focus on our thoughts about the book, we wont focus on other thoughts we have about how the sun is making us happy, or other thoughts we are having, we will be focusing on the book until we get off track and make ourself realize that we are thinking about how the sun makes us feel happy.

    EM

    ReplyDelete