Visual Perception Theories: Contrasting the bottom-up and top down theories.

For my final paper, I am going to explore the opposing schools of thought on how visual perception is explained. Since perception is not able to absolutely determine how much our senses depend on our surroundings and the data that is collected and determined. The information our eyes see, goes through a variety of senses and works with the remainder of the sensory organs to interpret the stimulus that is available in our surroundings.

The first school of thought, or the bottom-up theory believe that perception begins with stimuli and data is that stimuli is carried in one direction from the retina to the visual cortex were it is processed.

The next school of thought is the top-down theory which believes that perception is derived from interpreting patterns and understanding data based on a contextual bases. This is the school of thought that supports the "whole is a sum of its parts" line of thinking.