I have noticed an example of top-down processing recently while playing the new app pokemon go. The app has a 
feature that tells you there are pokemon nearby and if you have yet to caught a pokemon it is just a shadowed outline of the pokemon with no color or features. You can see an example in the photo below. Now to anyone without knowledge of pokemon it is just a nameless gray shape. However, with previous knowledge and through top-down processing I know that this gray shape is a Snorlax.
This example of top-down processing is very simple and easy to understand. You need previous knowledge of something and the right context to guide the information collected into something with meaning. With no previous experiences with pokemon the gray figures in the game are just that gray figures. They have no connection to anything in your previous knowledge so top-down processing does not occur and they remain gray figures with no meaning.
On the same note the Pokemon show had a short segment before and after commercials called who’s that pokemon. Where they showed a gray figure of a pokemon before the commercial and showed the pokemon after 
commercial break. This was the same example of top-down processing in different context.
Hi Mitchell!
I found your post to be extremely interesting. Growing up I was never a hardcore Pokemon fan however when the game first came to the app store I found myself playing the game everyday even up to this day trying to catch them all! When I first saw the gray figures of course I didn’t know all the Pokemon so some would just be that gray figures. However the one that i did know I would know them instantly and get excited searching for them to add to my Pokedex. Reason I found this to be interesting was because in my mind I never really looked at it as anything to do with the brain functions such as the top-down processing, I just looked at it as a game I really enjoyed playing. Now gaining insight on your perspective, I found that you are absolutely right about it. It brought information back to the brain that many probably didn’t even talk about as much when growing up but to show us that once the game of Pokemon Go was introduced all knowledge came back as if we never stopped playing the game.
I found your post very interesting about top-down processing while playing Pokémon go, and reading the comments. It all gave me a lot of food for thought of how Pokémon Go has managed to not only access Top-down processing as you said, but bottom-up processing as mentioned for various reasons. For one thing if you were an avid Pokémon fan in the 90s you’re likely to have seen every single Pokémon especially since every episode ended with a fast paced name rap accompanied by a photo so you could learn them all. So that’s 150 potential figures to cause triggers for top-down processing. But also even more triggers for bottom up processing since it is a grey figure that’s shown, a lot of geons can be activated to help you switch to top-down processing in the case of Pokémon by recognition-by-components. RBC theory, proposes that we perceive objects by perceiving elementary features, called geons. Geons are perceptual building blocks that can be combined to create objects. (Goldstein, 2011). Although in this case combined to create Pokémon especially if you’ve only memorized like half the list and only have a faint idea of what kind of Pokémon it could be. To use your example, the snorlax has two circles and two triangles for instance as geons. Given the variety of all the Pokémon, the geons that make them all up are interesting.
Pokémon Rap included for those not familiar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMk8wuw7nek
References:
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology; Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (Vol. 3). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Another thing that might also be at play when playing the game PokemonGo is feature detectors. Feature detectors are neurons that respond to the features of an object seen such as shape, color, and size (Goldstein, 2011). Although, color cannot be detected in the gray figure, it can be analyzed by its other features like the shape and size of the image (ex. big, round). This process starts out as a bottom-up process, looking at the image, then accessing prior knowledge (top-down processing) of Pokemon shapes and sizes to figure out which Pokemon it is. This simple game involves some higher order thinking and is more complex than it seems.
References
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience
(Vol. 3). (pp. 38). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Hi Mitchell!
What an interesting blog! Top-down processing involves using information from our previous knowledge, expectations and experience to help us interpret the information that is coming in through our senses. (Goldstein, 2011) Having previous knowledge about the different types of Pokémon, absolutely would provide you with an advantage within the game. You are able to connect the shape of the character to of course identify it, but also recognize properties such as its strengths and weaknesses. An example such as yours just goes to show how often we use these types of process in the everyday world. You were able to take a basic feature- such as the character’s shape and transform it into more that would benefit you when participating in the game. This process also appears to be automatic for you- another advantage. By using this technique, it allows you allot more focus on the data you need to collect to advance your status in the game. According to a few articles I have read, this “top-down” process is essential for entrepreneurs and leaders/bosses. Top-down processing incites creativity, higher level thinking, Therefore, a ‘simple’ game such as Pokémon is really refining skills that are needed later in life.
Works Cited
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology; Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (Vol. 3). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.