It began with the asking. What is this thing before me?
Extract features - a plateau (I have few context-dependent expectations)
But now I've found one, I want to know, are there more?
There are indeed more plateaus.
I extract again, without expectation... I found a slope!
Perhaps I should look for others - yes, here they are.
Now that I have found a mountain, I will see more.
Now that I have found mountains, I can decide exactly where they end and begin.
...And so goes the perceptual process as described by Hofstadter. It begins heavily bottom-up and with each clue becomes increasingly influenced by top-down perceptual acts. First we find the individual packets (made salient by features like similarity), then we examine if that is repeated in a pattern, then look for more units, see if they fit into the pattern, until there is nothing outside of the pattern to find.
Hofstadter tells us how pattern finding is the “core of intelligence.” Understanding the present well enough to accurately predict the future (and adjust patterns of action accordingly) certainly seems to be a feature of the smart.
It may seem trivial and obvious, but I think the process of validating perceptions is of incredible interest to psychology and cognitive science. The return to bottom-up perceptual acts after a pattern has been found and the top-down processes dominate seems essential to our functioning. It is this step that will re-ground us in reality, allows us to check and recheck our patterns. Without it, the patterns we find can go unquestioned and are allowed to dominate our consciousness. An example of top-down gone amuck and unchecked might be present in cases of the extremely paranoid or schizophrenic. Once you hypothesize people are out to get you and don’t counter the top-down lens with a bottom-up validation – more and more people will appear to be targeting you unfairly. Of course, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the necessity of an occasional return to bottom-up after a conclusion has been reached. A reevaluation, akin to the reperception described the previous entry.
Extract features - a plateau (I have few context-dependent expectations)
But now I've found one, I want to know, are there more?
There are indeed more plateaus.
I extract again, without expectation... I found a slope!
Perhaps I should look for others - yes, here they are.
Now that I have found a mountain, I will see more.
Now that I have found mountains, I can decide exactly where they end and begin.
...And so goes the perceptual process as described by Hofstadter. It begins heavily bottom-up and with each clue becomes increasingly influenced by top-down perceptual acts. First we find the individual packets (made salient by features like similarity), then we examine if that is repeated in a pattern, then look for more units, see if they fit into the pattern, until there is nothing outside of the pattern to find.
Hofstadter tells us how pattern finding is the “core of intelligence.” Understanding the present well enough to accurately predict the future (and adjust patterns of action accordingly) certainly seems to be a feature of the smart.
It may seem trivial and obvious, but I think the process of validating perceptions is of incredible interest to psychology and cognitive science. The return to bottom-up perceptual acts after a pattern has been found and the top-down processes dominate seems essential to our functioning. It is this step that will re-ground us in reality, allows us to check and recheck our patterns. Without it, the patterns we find can go unquestioned and are allowed to dominate our consciousness. An example of top-down gone amuck and unchecked might be present in cases of the extremely paranoid or schizophrenic. Once you hypothesize people are out to get you and don’t counter the top-down lens with a bottom-up validation – more and more people will appear to be targeting you unfairly. Of course, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates the necessity of an occasional return to bottom-up after a conclusion has been reached. A reevaluation, akin to the reperception described the previous entry.
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