Top-down modulation underlies our ability to selectively attend to relevant stimuli and to ignore irrelevant stimuli. Theories addressing neural mechanisms of top-down modulation are driven by studies that reveal increased magnitude of neural activity in response to directed attention, but are limited by a lack of data reporting modulation of neural processing speed, as well as comparisons with...

This paper examines an inconsistency in generic ’top-down’ design methods and standards employed in the implementation of reliable software. Many design approaches adopt top-down ordering when defining the structure, interfaces, and processing of a system. However, strict adherence to a top-down sequencing does not permit accurate description of a system’s error handling functions. The design o...