Proper Essay Example About Psych 490

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There are many times when my initial perception fails me, and I am definitely not the only one to experience this. It is all because of the role of top-down and bottom-up processing.
A specific instance, when my initial perception failed me relates to my cousin. One day, I was in my room when I heard someone speaking with my sister. I was certain that it was my cousin, Rod. I could hear his voice. I was about to call him the night before to borrow a book that I needed for a class. I knew he had that book since we were going to the same school at that time, on the same class. After a few minutes, I went outside and called his name. I thought he was just somewhere around the house. I saw my sister sitting outside the porch, so I asked where Rod was. She said “I don’t know. Why are you asking me?” I told her that I heard she was speaking with Rod a while ago. She laughed and told me that it was Gerry, Rod’s brother. That instance, shows that I had an incorrect perception because I only relied on the stimulus, the voice, which I received. This is how the bottom-up processing works.
Now, observing the world without the top-down processing would be difficult. Just like my example, it would expose us to many incorrect perception and understanding. For example, I was looking through my Facebook feed when I noticed that a friend posted a photo of her while she was reading a book in her room. The status reads “ATM.” Without top-down processing, I would not be able to understand the context of her post, and I might even wonder how she could be accessing an ATM machine while she was still in her home. This means that her photo and status would not make sense to me, but because of the top-down approach, I understood that what she wanted to say was that she was at her room, reading, at the moment (ATM).
Overall, it is difficult to have a correct understanding of the world around us without top-down processing because when only bottom-up processing works, we will be prone to commit perception error.