Sensation and perception are two processes by which humans interpret and receive information about their environment. Sensation is the process by which information involving the environment is compiled, and then transmitted to the brain for the initial processing. Perception is a related process, which organises the continuous array of sensations into meaningful information.
Sensation is an immediate experience. When a sensation becomes present within an human’s environment, it stimulates receptor cells in adjacent sensory organs. This stimulation, or information, travels to specialised areas within the brain, and is then further processed in order to gather information about the environment. Perception is a constructive and subjective process,
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One function of the human brain is to keep us focused on important goal-directed activity, such as addressing the warning that pain provides us with; to get away from the thing that causes us pain.
Top-down processing proposes that our brains intentionally choose information that is relevant towards the goals that we are aiming for. Due to this, the sensitivity of neural responses, which occur during the process of sensation, are adjusted up or down depending on the importance of the goal. If the brain is focused on another goal when pain occurs, the attention placed on this goal may override the neural response towards the pain, and the neural response will be adjusted downwards; the human may become oblivious to the pain in that instance. Therefore, top-down processing can sometimes create states of analgesia.
For example, the pain associated with heartburn is a common occurrence amongst most humans, and is therefore often ignored because most of us have had experience with heartburn, and know that it usually passes without too much attention to