Mule parsing Incoming REST request

Mule parsing Incoming REST request

I have a REST client that is preparing payload in JSON format and invoking
a REST service. My job is to create the REST service in Mule. I need some
information on how I can map the incoming Payload to a java object so that
I can invoke the REST service component class and get the values passed in
the JSON object. Does the payload after HTTP inbound endpoint already
contain the JSON values sent by the client? In which case a simple JSON to
Object mapper would map it as Hashmap?