bottom-up and top-down processing


     Comprehension of written or spoken language involves 
both bottom-up and top-down processing.


Fig. 3 Receptive processing

Example

 A Thai woman walks into a supermarket in the USA. She wants to buy some fruit. The cashier asks her, “Paper or plastic?”


Knowledge from bottom-up process: knowing the meaning and part of speech of the words “paper” and “plastic”, and knowing that high pitch intonation indicates an interrogative sentence (question).

       Knowledge from top-down process: understanding the context and the situation that the cashier is asking if he wants a paper or a plastic bag.

This applies to both receptive (listening,reading) and productive (speaking,writing) activities.


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