Sensation & Perception

There’s a difference between sensing and perceiving. Sensation is the process of receiving outside stimuli by the senses such as vision, hearing smell etc. Perception is the process of organising and interpreting that sensory information by putting it into the correct context in the mind. The process of perception is heavily influenced by our thoughts (expectations, memories, cultural norms etc.) and emotions (moods, feelings etc.).

Sensory input

All information about reality comes in various physical forms such as sound, light, pressure, heat etc. These natural phenomena are registered by our bodies through receptors which are specialised nerve cells responding to certain signals from the environment. Nerve cells in our eyes are specialised to respond to electromagnetic waves (light), in ears they respond to air vibrations, in tongue they recognise tastes, in nose they recognise molecular compositions of gases and air, in tissues they react to pressure, heat, temperature etc. They are many such cell receptors throughout and inside the human body (which we call 5 senses) detecting stimuli from within and without.

The receptor nerve cells transform the information into electric and chemical currents that flow along the body to the spinal cord and from there to the brain for integration. Our senses work like a video camera recording the sensory input. But a video camera lacks consciousness, an inner experience that would give any meaning to the recorded material provided by the senses.

 

HUMAN MIND VS. ANIMAL BRAIN

Living beings like humans and animals don't function as mere robots or machines just recording and storing information. We also process the information further in ways that deliver responses to the environment. That processing takes place in our inner conscious or unconscious experience that corresponds to the different divisions of the brain.

The more complex the brain is, the more capable it becomes for thinking processes. The less complex the brain is (like in animals), the more activity focuses on the lower vital functions responsible for survival, instincts, and space orientation. Animals don't think consciously the way humans do. Their brains consist mainly of the reptilian brain and some centres for emotional processing. Animals don't have a well-developed cerebral cortex.

 

Concepts as mental classes

What distinguishes humans from animals is mentality (mind, intellect, reason) which is physically represented by the cerebral cortex (cerebrum) of the brain. The cerebrum makes it possible for us to think. Thinking is the ability to create mental abstractions based on physical experience. Thinking summarises objects, events and phenomena into classes which contain common characteristics of those objects, events and phenomena.

Such a mental class summarising certain aspects of reality in which common features of a thing are grouped into a structure is called a concept. The more abstract a concept is, the more of reality it encompasses and thus appears less tangible. Examples of human concepts are basically everything that makes up human civilisation and culture (e.g. science, philosophy, religion, craft, music, values, norms, feelings, furniture etc.). The list goes on indefinitely.