Processing sending slider data to arduino over bluetooth.

Hi all. II am using processing for Android and the Ketai library to send bluetooth from my android tablet to the arduino board.
I can understand how turning on/off an led is done but could someone please help me with how Arduino deals with sent bytes over bluetooth?
For instance, if I wanted to send the value of a slider in processing (using ControlP5 library's slider object, say, )to arduino Bluetooth, how would I get Arduino to make sense of the incoming slider data?
In other words, how are continuously changing numbers dealt with on the recieveing end of Arduino??

If anyone can understand this question and give me some pointers I will be very happy.
Thanks,
Steve.