In top-down processing, the brain uses hypotheses or theories to fill in the blanks. The opposite of reductionism is holism theory, which is the theory for “top-down” processing. However, in the real world, these two strategies dynamically interact to help us understand the world around us.īottom-up is a reductionist theory, meaning it starts by observing a concept’s most basic parts.
The two theories are typically taught side-by-side.įor many years, research on bottom-up and top-down processes have been conducted separately. the brain creates a perception via these signalsĪ few years after the concept of bottom-up processing emerged, British psychologist Richard Gregory proposed “top-down” processing as bottom-up’s counterpart.
sensory receptors send signals to the brain.Overall, bottom-up processing involves the following steps: Your perception didn’t require prior knowledge that anyone was baking cookies. To determine this, you didn’t need any other context or information - you simply used the sweet smell (the stimulus or raw data) to make your analysis. It’s called “bottom-up” because it begins with the external stimulus - such as a tree or the smell of cookies - and then that sensory information moves to the brain for analysis.įor instance, if you suddenly detect a sweet chocolaty smell wafting through the house, you might then determine that someone in your home is baking chocolate chip cookies. This process is considered one of the core ways we understand the world around us. “Bottom-up” processing is a psychological strategy first defined in the 1960s by American psychologist James J Gibson.
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