The Use of Iambic Pentameter in the

would not be. It would be easier to identify a desk in an office than to identify a desk in a
kitchen. This is because the desk seems to be a likely object that we would find in an
office setting, according to the schema that humans have about offices.
Sometimes the influence of top-down processing can be so strong that we can
actually misinterpret bottom-up visual information. For example, in Figure 1, the middle
letter of each word is interpreted differently based on its context. The middle letter in first
word is perceived as an ‘H’ because that is the letter we expect in the word most visually
similar to it, ‘THE.’ However, the middle letter in the second word is perceived as an ‘A’
because that is the letter we expect in the word most visually similar to it, ‘CAT.’ Both
letters are actually the same size and shape and are neither an ‘A’ nor an ‘H.’ In this case,
humans rely so much on the word context that the missing information is added by the
brain. Similarly, humans may see objects in a scene that are not really there because these
objects are part of the general schema for that scene (e.g., Intraub, Bender & Mangels,
1992; Intraub & Richardson, 1989). For example, we may interpret a large rectangular
object in an office scene as a desk, even if it is really an oven, because we expect a desk
to be present in an office.
Figure 1. Illustration of context effects that affect letter interpretation
Note. Middle letters in each word are identical in shape and size. However, humans perceive an ‘H’ in first word and an
‘A’ in second word due to expectations.
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