AP Psychology Lecture Slides: Top-Down, Bottoms Up!

About this resource

What's inside this resource

This resource is a AP Psychology Lecture Slides: Top-Down, Bottoms Up!

These slides are a great introduction to concepts such as sensation and perception.

Within this 90-minute lecture presentation, students will dive deep into these psychology topics.

Videos and activities are included within the presentation.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Compare and contrast sensation and perception as separate biological and cognitive processes
Distinguish bottom-up processing (sensation) from top-down processing (perception) using the jelly-bean demo and the prosopagnosia example

Teaching tips

Run the jelly-bean demo (slide 3) before the definition slides so students have a shared concrete experience to map the bottom-up/top-down vocabulary onto
Use the prosopagnosia case as a discussion prompt: ask students to identify which part of face processing is intact (bottom-up) and which is impaired (top-down)
Use the closing study-tip slide as a quick recap or exit-ticket prompt at the end of the lesson
Have students physically taste the jelly beans as the demo instructs so the sensation-vs-expectation contrast is felt, not just described

Skills covered

Sensation-versus-perception distinction — students differentiate the biological process of sensation from the cognitive process of perception.
Top-down/bottom-up processing analysis — students classify information processing as sensory-driven (bottom-up) or expectation-driven (top-down) using the jelly-bean flavor-prediction demo.
Applied case analysis — students examine prosopagnosia as a real clinical example of intact bottom-up but impaired top-down face processing.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What real-world case illustrates the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?

Prosopagnosia, or face blindness: people with the condition can process a face's raw visual features (bottom-up) but cannot recognize it as a face, even their own (top-down).

How does the jelly-bean demo set up the lecture's core contrast?

Students predict a jelly bean's flavor with a partner before tasting it, then the slides map that prediction to top-down (expectation-driven) processing and the actual taste to bottom-up (sensory) processing.