In science, cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. Various disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, science, and computer science all study cognition. However, the term's usage varies across disciplines; for example, in psychology and cognitive science, "cognition" usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. It is also used in a branch of social psychology called social cognition to explain attitudes, attribution, and groups dynamics.

Cognition is a faculty for the processing of information, applying knowledge, and changing preferences. Cognition, or cognitive processes, can be natural or artificial, conscious or unconscious. These processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, anesthesia, neurology and psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, systemics, computer science, and creed. Within psychology or philosophy, the concept of cognition is closely related to abstract concepts such as mind, intelligence. It encompasses the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities (humans, collaborative groups, human organizations, highly autonomous machines, and artificial intelligences).

Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the organization, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs. For example, vision involves light striking the retinas of the eyes, smell is mediated by odor molecules and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not the passive receipt of these signals, but can be shaped by learning, memory and expectation. Perception involves these "top-down" effects as well as the "bottom-up" process of processing sensory input. The "bottom-up" processing is basically low-level information that's used to build up higher-level information (i.e. - shapes for object recognition). The "top-down" processing refers to a person's concept and expectations (knowledge) that influence perception. Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness.

The perceptual systems of the brain enable individuals to see the world around them as stable, even though the sensory information may be incomplete and rapidly varying. Human and animal brains are structured in a modular way, with different areas processing different kinds of sensory information. Some of these modules take the form of sensory maps, mapping some aspect of the world across part of the brain's surface. These different modules are interconnected and influence each other. For instance, , the taste is strongly influenced by its odor.

Please refer the following references for details:

1. Goldstein, E. Bruce (13 February 2009). Sensation and perception. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-60149-4. Retrieved 26 March 2011.

2. Gregory, Richard L.; Zangwill, O. L. (1987). The Oxford companion to the mind. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 March 2011.

3. Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2009). Cognitive psychology (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

4. Sensation & Perception, 5th ed. 1999, Coren, Ward & Enns, p. 9

5. Cognitive Psychology, 5th ed. 1999, Best, John B., p. 15-17

GUD LUCK

Regards

In your schema, I think you could substitute "sensation" for the transduction stage and that would fit with classic conceptions. Also, I don't think you can completely separate perception, which is the awareness, categorization and pattern recognition associated with sensory information processing, from cognition, as a separate stage of information processing. Rather, perception could be considered that part of cognition associated with sensory processing, while it can be recognized that cognition has a larger scope and also includes information processing not associated with external stimulation per se (e.g., internally driven thoughts, stream of consciousness).

Perception is the processing and organization of sensory signals both in the peripheral sensory system and in the CNS (mainly posterior sensory area). Cognition, especially in mammals, involves many other brain areas, especially dealing with attention, motor aspects, decision-taking (prefrontal areas) and even emotional aspects. In humans, we can know about mathematical equations but without a significant involvement of perception (apart from seeing some symbols written on a page or use a computer), or at least far less significant than when a rat (or even a human) is exploring a maze.

G. Auletta

@Ramtin Zargari

While I agree with the three definitions of perception and cognition, i would humbly suggest to download my paper on *objective and subjective quality of environment...* from my page, you will get additional references clarifying these two concepts therein.

Thank you all

In perception level, you still have no conclusion. In cognition level you already have a conclusion.

I'm think , in a embodied point of view, that the perception is a part important of cognition. When tou build a mental representation, this construction begin in a percepction channel and besides includes it. For example in a emergent vision every mental representation born in one specific time and context...and if you change every condition the representagtion changes to....I'm agree that sometimes you recover the prototipical sign, but nobody can be free of context, emotional, priming and so on consditions that every cognition situation produces

Personally, I think that the difference between perception and cognition becomes clear, when you just look at the definitions. Both words stem from latin; perception comes from "percipere", meaning to gain/receive, while cognition comes from cognoscere, meaning to learn/know.

From these definitions, it can be clearly seen that they describe different processes. However, these processes can be closely related to eachother. Most of the time, to learn/know something, you have to have gained/received prior information. Although, it is very much possible that one can learn/know something, without having gained/received that exact prior information (e.g. deduction inference).

I suggest you look at the work from Panos Athanasopoulos, from Bangor University, Uk, he shows that cognition and in fact, the language you speak, influences your perception, even before you're aware of perceiving something. So the older views that separated perception from cognition might not be valide.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027710001289

Perception being a sensory part of cognition..i would go for that, its an initial processing leading to a wholesum formation of memory consolidation.

Ramtin wrote, "...stimulus --> (transduction?) --> perception --> cognition --> (qualia?)", to which Don added that one mnight replace transduction with "sensation". One other addition is Liebniz' term, "apperception", similarly derived from the Latin word for "to perceive". Its place in philosophy (and therefore science) is that it enabled one (e.g. the phenomenologists) to account for conscious (apprehension) of a perception, that might otherwise be automatized or uncs. However, still there's the problem that more than one road goesfrom start (sitmulus) to your endpoint, cognition. that is, cognition is of course not always conscious, e.g. automitized learning, heuristics and biases.

To be understood, something must to be identified, defined, or characterized clearly. In the level of perception, these process are still going on. In the level of cognition something is already understood.

These are all wonderful responses. Ramtin, if I may offer, perception is to cognition what reach is to grasp. In the one, acquisition/confirmation seek to overcome continual doubt of what the external might be. In the other, doubt has been overcome, and certainty no longer requires confirmation. What was outside, within reach, is now inside, clasped firmly.

Lonny

1. Perception is a more clearly delineated topic than cognition, where the latter is quite ill-defined (and for good reasons).

2. The important point is that, in the Western culture, cognition is considerably over-appreciated compared to perception, even though the latter is central to cognition itself and central to all biological organisms.

Cognition is a rather general concept that refers to many kinds of mental operations performed by our brain, some done under control, some taking place in a rather automatic or reflexive way; and the products of such operations, some reach a conscious representation, some remain unconscious. Some operations have to do with reaching several representations of the world, from very basic to more complex features in which a stimulus can be defined. The study of how those representations are formed constitutes the main topic of what is called "Perception". Representations can also be formed in the absence of any physical stimulus (Imaging). They can be recognized as previously experienced (memory), can activate other representations of related stimuli (implicit memory), and can activate additional information (function, place, time, etc, long-term episodic memory). Certain representations might reach priority because they are special for the individual, very informative, or fit with expectations (Attention), and might activate a specific response (Action). Some representations and/or actions refer to verbal material, and then constitute the topic of Language (comprehension, production). All this (and much more) is Cognition.

Cognition is a mental process that occurs through conscious or unconscious learning, it is founded on knowing,perceiving, recognizing, reasoning and conceiving.

I would define cognition as the apparatus involved in the processing / extraction of the information obtained by the main, perception, mechanism.

But this is not a standard definition.

Hello Ramtin----Perception is our ability to appreciate, through our senses, the external world...that's not to say it's infallible. For instance, if we see something that is large, red and gives off heat, it is our cognition that reminds us that it is unlikely to be a meteor but rather is the sun. It seems to approach the right brain-left brain dichotomy with cognition being more left than right.....

Perception allows us to perceive - nothing more. Cognition is the process by which knowledge is acquired, including perception, intuition, and reasoning. It also refers to the knowledge resulting from this process. Hence, cognition allows us to attach meaning to perception - is my take on this.

Perception is the outcome of effortless activity rather auto record by the senses.Cognition is the interpretation given by the process after matching with the past records at the mental level.Perception is rather an input for the cognition to initiate.Tentative learning takes place before the cognition is actually established.Cognition is a part of memory that is accessible for problem solving.

If we were to believe that there is no difference in perception/cognition, how would would we explain this redundant system?

Fran, the concept of cognition came in when considering humans. With other animals, this concept would have been superfluous.

So, the mess with "cognition" is due to us having the language capability. I am sure that this capability has been misleading people in cognitive science and AI.

Fran, I think you are right. This is such a great question. Isn't it in redundance we find all meaning and certainty? Quanta in frequency, for us, is redundance by quanta. Why do we need more than one proof that something is? But we do, and we need it as a constant reminder. We are redundant by nature through our senses; one confirms the doubt of all the others, and still the whole is uncertain.

Via modality, dimensionality, categorical elaboration or definitional articulation, we exhibit redundant measures to relieve our anxiety - so much so, that we continue to remain uncertain whether there is more certainty hidden somewhere in that little doubt. Even in our diversity, we seek redundant social affirmations by continually referencing others we deem best available to verify our own hope that what seemed briefly true, still is. It is in the gaps between instanced certainty we estimate what convinces us.I think you are right Fran, and greatly appreciate you sharing this. We need perception to convince cognition that what we believe is still true.

Prior to the development of the frontal lobe and especially the prefrontal cortex, all we had was our instinctual brain...mostly cerebellum---our reptile brain, and these areas had perception and were able, in most cases, to stay alive a litle bit longer because of it.

The Intelligence of Vision: An Interview with Rudolf Arnheim

Web source: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/rudolfarnheim.php

At a neurocomputational point of view, perception is the evoked pattern activation prompted by the sensory signal; what we perceive is not what we sense but what it resonates. The percepts then feed higher-level, cognitive elaborations, such as multi-modal associations, memory, behaviour.

As is evident from above scholarly responses, it is hard to make a clear-cut distinction between perception and cognition, however, below an attempt is made to understand the two systems:

------Perception and cognition are tightly related as the two systems exert on one another. Perception refers to information of the world obtained through interaction of its stimuli with our sensory systems, forming visual, auditory and other images of the world.

------Cognition refers to mental representation of our perceptual experience and use of these representations to operate effectively. We are not passive organisms whose mental representations are simple or direct reflections of the outside world. Rather, we are active processors of events in the world. Thus, thinking, remembering, forming concepts, opinions, beliefs and acting accordingly all indeed define the domain of cognition.

-----Perceptual information guides our decisions and actions, and shapes our beliefs. At the same time our knowledge influences the way we perceive the world. To the extent that perception and cognition seem to share information, it seems there is no sharp division between the realm of cognitive abilities and that of perceptual abilities.

-----For example, visual processing is composed of different stages: early, intermediate, and late vision. Roughly, at early stages of the visual system, processes like segregation of figure from background, border detection, and the detection of basic features (e.g., colour, orientation, motion components) occur. This information reaches intermediate stages, where it is combined into a temporary representation of an object. At later stages, the temporary object representation is matched with previous object shapes stored in long-term visual memory to achieve visual object identification and recognition. While early visual processes are largely automatic and independent of cognitive factors, late visual stages are more influenced by our knowledge (previous experiences). Examples of cognitive influence on how we perceive the world–that modulates late vision–are visual search and attention (Knowing the colour or shape of an object helps a person to quickly identify that particular object in a cluttered visual scene). Phenomena like visual search highlight the fact that visual perception at later stages depends on both sensory and cognitive factors. Thus, cognitive information influences perceptual processes, but, at the same time, cognitive processes depend on perceptual information

Milan, I don't like the term "cognition" mainly because, at this point in time, it does not serve any productive purpose. When we get a better handle on the basic perceptual process, we will introduce in an *informed manner* more relevant information processes that rely on the perceptual processes.

Milan, presently we don't have a handle on the informational structure of the much more fundamental, perceptual, processes. What is the point of speculating about the other processes that are completely dependent on these basic processes?

The perception is the result of the internal dialogue of the brain with himself, cognition is to be aware of this.

Best regards.

It's funny that such a simple question raises so many different points of view. To put some more oil in the fire, I would claim that my dog is capable not only to perceive, but is also in possession of many of our cognitive functions, for example, understanding (and not only perceiving) what I mean by saying to him "back" or "go out". My dog is also capable of planning, another cognitive - executive - function. So, just some cognitive functions are human priviledge. Others are inherited.

Ivilin,

My dog hate bath. I call my dog several time a day for all kind of reasons. Once a month, I would say "sibelle", with the intention to give her a bath. I do not know what, the tone? but she goes hiding figuring my intension before any other clue than the way I say her name.

The question is far from being simple and I totally agree with Lev that it is too premature to cast the boundary between cognition and perception. In his book: "visual Intelligence", Rudolph Arnheim historically traced back the division between perception and cognition to Parmenides. Parmenides was claiming that the world was really static. He then explain away changes as the illusion of perception. So the way to knowledge is through rational reasoning giving access to the true unchanging eternel world.

I understand that cognition depends not on intelligence or IQ, but have an idea clear and objective of himself and the environment. For example, a dog and a chimpanzee have cognition perfectly structured regardless of the resources utilized by your brain in the perceptual process.

Perception is acquiring information through the senses...Cognition is processing it.

We could hardly beat chimps on visual short term memory. But that's supported by better perceptual capacities (we spend our neuorons somewhere else). Planning is much higher on some intelligence-measure scale. Milan, your previous example on tool make/use is a nice example in ... birds. Not to talk of dolphins, capable of communicating with symbols.

as I said before, perception is most likely about learning and recalling percepts (or sets of features), of any type and complexity. They could also be activated by higher level processes through top-down links in order to ground cognitive states. Thus, perception is to support cognition. The qualia of having some type of cognitive functions may be called intelligence. As for visual illusions, properties of the perceptual systems (e.g., habitutation; competition) could explain many of them.

Here is a series of works related to the video pointed by Milan. Quoted is a part of the discussion of the last reference, which is self-explaining. Those abilities go way beyond perception, and have neural realization in associative brain areas (the so-called nidopallium and mesopallium regions in birds).

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001860

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0006471

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009345

"Embodied cognition involves an animal developing complex behaviour through understanding the consequences of its own actions, without using off-line processes such as insight and planning. This cognition is similar to that involved in time-pressured human spatial decision making such as steering a car or playing a computer game like Tetris."

Math cognition is my business :-), but I did not know of that reference (thanks!). I should say that math could be much simpler than what is seems to be. Simple additions for example don't depend on language at all (e.g., simulations in my Cortex 2004 paper), but even in humans they are supported by discrete semantic coding of sets (think of the Abakus; there is also neuropsychological evidence). Similar for subtraction. That parrot's (and some monkey) abilities could then reduce to associations and capability to enumerate (learned, as I recently suggested in my 2012 nat.neurosc. work) and accumulate (easy to learn as well). Actually, many more animals could do enumeration and accumulation (e.g., fish and bees) but lack elaborated auditory perception and speech production. Assocuations like those of the parrot, and further processing, are examples of something that is way beyond perception, and is certainly part of what should be called cognition. Going back to the question of quality of cognitive capacities, I guess the qualia "intelligent" has been given to cognitive capabilities that are not so frequent in the animal world (despite recently observed also in animals, following specific training). Man wants to be the only intelligent creature.

Perception is described by which (sensory stimulus) you could understand anything. eg: as you look at any object, visual stimuli make you to organize them to have complete image.

Cognition is process at your mind for all activities we do.

you can refer "Piaget's theory of cognitive development" and

http://psychandneuro.duke.edu/uploads/assets/Chapter10.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03204183?LI=true

I agree with you Sathiya. You said it with absolute precision.

Thank you Martin. Its pleasure.

Well, Milan. I am not an expert in animal cognition. But I suggest you to refer:

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2009_PDF/Rooijakkers-Dogs_apes_track_object_transpositions-AnimCog2009.pdf

http://email.eva.mpg.de/~braeuer/pdf/Braeuer_et_al_2011.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2004_PDF/Visual_perspective_taking_04.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2009_PDF/Tennie_et_al_2009.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2009_PDF/kaminski_et_al09.pdf

http://email.eva.mpg.de/~braeuer/pdf/Kaminski_et_al_2011_dogs.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2009_PDF/Kaminski_Tempelmann_Call_Tomasello_2009.pdf

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/pdf/Publications_2006_PDF/Making_Inferences_About_the_Location_of_Hidden_06.pdf

these studies all conducted in Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Leipzig.

a video clip:

http://www.mpg.de/5027735/intelligent_dogs

I work in the area of cochlear implants where the distinction between perception and cognition needs to be more clearly understood. Cochlear implants allow deaf children to hear (perceive sounds) but not necessarily to understand them (cognition). As children learn spoken language, their cognition improves, even though their basic perception may not change. This is a controversial topic amongst neuroscientists - does brain plasticity imply improved perception or cognition, or both? Clinically, the good outcomes show that improvements of both perception and cognition occur following cochlear implantation in children up to age 8, but are typically slower for older children compared to younger ones. In adults, there is some evidence that central processing of sound improves over about 3 years following cochlear implantation. Again, it is not clear whether this is an instantaneous improvement in perception followed by a slower improvement in cognition, or whether perception also improves with practice.

If cognition is supported by "active perception", and an implant is just a sort of a passive device, then this implant might not sufficiently well support cognition. By active cognition I mean a sort of a device that reveberates bottom-up input and top-down cognitive processing, such as the multimodal integration Milan refers to. Peter, could you give us some refs about your point ("not necesserily understand them")?

Peter, I think not necessary to give an example of deaf children. I am Indonesian. If some people near me talking in Russian or Chinese., I can perceive their voice, but I can not understand them. Understanding is a cognition process?

Effectively Sutamo.

You perceive (perception) that you speak, who want you to say something, you can perceive their anguish, their stress, perhaps their joy, can perceive in your tone of voice and expression, in his body language many things; but I am convinced that as much as you detect these foreign people are not able to know is what happens if you do not know (cognition) their language.

I agree with you Milan, that cognition is not exclusive of the human language.

Let's go then to the field of vision (this is not exclusive to humanity as it is the case with language).I am sure that someone who can not read, a child, for example, can distinguish very well the letters that we are writing you and me, that child may possess intellectual, visual and logical capacity to perceive the letters, but I don't think that he might reach the cognitive part.

Art also an expression brain/mind. Some times we can interpret it very well, we can understand it..

Hi Milan. This is how works the cortical network: the first visual way only carries coded images dependent on the spatial frequency towards the primary visual cortex without any interpretation. Then the occipital-temporal way work to answer the question "which is what I'm seeing?" while via occipital-temporal answers the question "where this what I'm seeing?" and this is perception. However, this information must travel towards the frontal lobes to systematize what Piaget and Vigosky call "higher functions": judgment, character, determination, decision making, etc.and up to this moment in which - according to my point of view - we could speak of "cognition".

In the case of prehistoric drawings, for example, they express perfect part of who prepared them according to your environment a perception and cognition and carries the two basic elements: perception and cognition.

In science, cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. Various disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, science, and computer science all study cognition. However, the term's usage varies across disciplines; for example, in psychology and cognitive science, "cognition" usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. It is also used in a branch of social psychology called social cognition to explain attitudes, attribution, and groups dynamics.

Cognition is a faculty for the processing of information, applying knowledge, and changing preferences. Cognition, or cognitive processes, can be natural or artificial, conscious or unconscious. These processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, anesthesia, neurology and psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, systemics, computer science, and creed. Within psychology or philosophy, the concept of cognition is closely related to abstract concepts such as mind, intelligence. It encompasses the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities (humans, collaborative groups, human organizations, highly autonomous machines, and artificial intelligences).

Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the organization, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs. For example, vision involves light striking the retinas of the eyes, smell is mediated by odor molecules and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not the passive receipt of these signals, but can be shaped by learning, memory and expectation. Perception involves these "top-down" effects as well as the "bottom-up" process of processing sensory input. The "bottom-up" processing is basically low-level information that's used to build up higher-level information (i.e. - shapes for object recognition). The "top-down" processing refers to a person's concept and expectations (knowledge) that influence perception. Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness.

The perceptual systems of the brain enable individuals to see the world around them as stable, even though the sensory information may be incomplete and rapidly varying. Human and animal brains are structured in a modular way, with different areas processing different kinds of sensory information. Some of these modules take the form of sensory maps, mapping some aspect of the world across part of the brain's surface. These different modules are interconnected and influence each other. For instance, , the taste is strongly influenced by its odor.

Please refer the following references for details:

1. Goldstein, E. Bruce (13 February 2009). Sensation and perception. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-60149-4. Retrieved 26 March 2011.

2. Gregory, Richard L.; Zangwill, O. L. (1987). The Oxford companion to the mind. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 March 2011.

3. Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2009). Cognitive psychology (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

4. Sensation & Perception, 5th ed. 1999, Coren, Ward & Enns, p. 9

5. Cognitive Psychology, 5th ed. 1999, Best, John B., p. 15-17

GUD LUCK

Regards

Ramtin it will be interesting to know how far you are satisfied by the replies you have received.You are an electrical enginneer where do you come across cognition?

To me, "cognition" is everything that we might describe as "thinking," and perhaps a bit more. Unlike one of one of the respondents above, I would classify speech recognition as perception, because it happens automatically without any conscious effort. The fact that we improve at various sensory discriminations with practice is called "perceptual learning."

A trickier distinction might be between sensation and perception (which are often taught together). In the example of a language that one does not speak, you might say that it is sensed without being perceived. So perception seems to imply some sort of organization of the sensory data.

Although perception and cognition are treated separately, it is virtually impossible to study either in isolation. In a perceptual experiment, you have to explain the experiment to the subject, and then decision processes (cognition) are involved in the selection of the response. Similarly, in "cognitive" experiments, the stimuli must be delivered through some sensory modality (often vision).

There is a lot of evidence for dual process theories in cognition - which include implicit processing (see e.g., http://link.springer.com/journal/11299/11/1/page/1 ), so I would disagree on using consciousness of a process as a defining factor. For me perception is a sub-category of cognition or a domain within cognitive psychology.

I think people may have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was not proposing consciousness as a requirement for cognition - but I was proposing the absence of conscious involvement as a defining characteristic of perceptions. Percepts are the processed sensory inputs that are available to consciousness. In phenomena like "blind sight" people can act on stimuli that they are not conscious of, but I don't think that we would say that these stimuli are perceived.

I in no way was trying to limit cognition to language or decision processes. These were given merely as examples of non-perceptual cognition.

I agree that "speech perception" can mean different things depending on the complexity of what is said. What I meant by "speech perception" was the transformation from acoustical signals to phonological and linguistic units. In the case of simple utterances, not much more processing is required, but clearly that is not always the case.

There are probably many examples, but the classic one was demonstrated in a patient by Milner and Goodale. The subject was presented with a slot which could be oriented either horizontally or vertically. If asked the orientation of the slot, they could not report it, as they appeared to be blind as a result of a stroke. But if asked to actually insert an envelope into the slot, they would correctly orient the envelope and insert it into the slot. This was the basis for a theory of two parallel pathways, colloquially known as "perception" and "action", proposed to be associated with the ventral and dorsal streams (respectively). In this usage, the residual vision which supports carrying out the motor action is not considered perception because it is not available to consciousness.

Jeffrey, this is an oversimplified picture. Here is a more balanced picture from the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis):

Thus the emerging perspective within neuropsychology and neurophysiology is that, whilst a two-systems framework was a necessary advance to stimulate study of the highly complex and differentiated functions of the two neural pathways; the reality is more likely to involve considerable interaction between vision-for-action and vision-for-perception. Rob McIntosh and Thomas Schenk summarize this position as follows:

"We should view the model not as a formal hypothesis, but as a set of heuristics to guide experiment and theory. The differing informational requirements of visual recognition and action guidance still offer a compelling explanation for the broad relative specializations of dorsal and ventral streams. However, to progress the field, we may need to abandon the idea that these streams work largely independently of one other, and to address the dynamic details of how the many visual brain areas arrange themselves from task to task into novel functional networks."

Perception-the process of using the senses to acquire information about the surrounding environment or situation .

Cognition-the mental faculty or process of acquiring knowledge by the use of reasoning, intuition or perception.

Thanks Lev, for the clarification and the link.

This topic was introduced in the context of the question of whether consciousness is a necessary component of perception, and I would claim that while some stimuli are processed without consciousness, this is not what people generally mean by "perception."

A related question to which I am hesitant to voice an opinion is whether unconscious processing in included in what people generally mean by "cognition."

whoops, I meant "is included" not "in included"

Milan,

I have built all my theoretical research program on the following hypothesis: classification and class representation (how information about classes is stored) are pervasive and lie at the very basis of perception (and hence cognition). We have a concrete formal 'model' for that. By the way, this implies, in particular, that something like "straight lines" also form a class.

Does anyone know any groups in neuropsychology, neurophysiology, or related areas that also work under this hypothesis?

Milan,

Although I can recognize Bill Clinton from images of him, I do not think that I have a Bill Clinton's neuron in my brain.

The visual system analysed the images into a hierarchy of abtract categories. It does not explicitly map objects in images to categories. The categories are implicit active hierarchical structure detection mechanisms. In the case of the analysis of a portion of the visual field where Bill Clinton is standing, The biggest features of a human body are first detected. From there the part experience based feature extraction enter into play for identifying then specific human feature to large categories of human are discriminate and then matching with specific feature linking to specific experience where Bill Clinton is involved.

We can communicate to each other using language because, gestures, spoken words and written words map to the visual system perceptual schemata, they are enacted by words in the same way that they are enacted in our imagination and in our dreams. Sign language was invented by primitive human because their consciousness is spitted between the mamallian awareness of what is actually happening around them and self-enact visual experience that only happen during dreams for other mammals. It allowed them to distinguish between normal behaviour of other human and theatrical performance mimicking their self-enacted experience.

MIlan,

I am sure Hilary has a Bill Clinton network ; she share her life in a significant way with him but not me.

When I listen to the news and Bill Clinton is mentioned, it will evoke Bill Clinton laughing at the side of the drunken's Yeltsin, or I see Bill Clinton with a bible in his hand pretending to be sorry about Lewinsky, or him playing saxophone, and about fifty of similar situations or time capsules those being related to other time capsules that together is what I remember from my life. 99% of the information of each situation is not really learned during my life because it is made of generic information I was born with and built-in in my visual systems. I only learned the 1% that modulate this generic information allowing me to tell a story of each situation. Most of the information involving Bill Clinton is not about Bill Clinton but about its relations with everything else. Our knowledge of the world is relational and highly integrated in order to be useful. When we describe what we know, we use words and each word is different from the other one and we attribute different name to different people. Things are not separated like that in our brain. Most of our brain is a mammal brain and non-human mammal cannot explicitly remember anything. Mammal learn tacit knowledge and the same for us. I know how to ride a bike but I cannot tell you how I do it. Most of our learning are of this nature including our learning where Bill Clinton is involved. So 99% of what I can say is not learn and 99% of what I learned I cannot say.

I shall try to define some basic notions that can be helpful. We must first distinguish between sensation and perception. Sensation is essentially the response of sense receptors or organs to external stimuli and consists essentially in sensory coding : the physical or chemical properties of the stimulus are translated in a process that, although have still a chemical character, has an informational value for the organism, as it is evident for the neural impulses (but is still true for any organism). Perception is the processing, organization and, in a wide sense, interpretation of sensory signals. Some make this distinction in terms of receptor and perceptual organ. As it is evident from this, cognition in a wide sense is already involved in perception. Nevertheless, it is also evident that, especially for animals and in particular mammals, there are further or higher cognitive processes that are partly independent from perception. In fact, animals are able to act in cognitive consistency with past actions, what demands a certain further elaboration of the perceptual material. Nevertheless, no organism (even not humans) can develop significant cognitive activity without having started with some form of perception or without to recurrently acquire information through perception. This perceptual activity can obviously be addressed also to social processes.

Hi Ramtin from Spain is nice to meet research community. In order of my experience and my own research for build a Model that explain the relationship betwen the Real World outside our brain and the reality that neurosensorial inputs send us. With the team at Capacitas NeuroScience Institute I can define this as Theory of Sensory Worlds to explain that: outside there are a REAL WORLD, the onlyone for all of us, but our sensorial system make us percive for develop a personal REALITY. Then PERCEPTION is not the same for everyone. The model is very complex but, for example, our previous experience brings the brain memories for build its own prediction. That is the way our brain has the power for mistaking PERCEPTION and our own REALITY of REAL WORLD. One of the most important reasons are the neurosensory cross of inputs and brain confusion. When we have develop the individual CONCEPT including a simbolic image with the semantic temporal lobe subtitle that brings the language the vital role, we have process the information

...sorry, I was writing how the integration of every concept maybe named COGNITION.

What I meant by saying that cognition is already in the perceptual stage especially for what concerns interpretation goes into the same direction

1.Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge.

2.Sensation is the stimulation of sense organs.Perception is the selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input.

3.Cognitive process involves perception stage

Try also...

Suzuki, WA (2010) Untangling memory from perception in the medial temporal lobe. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 14, 195-200.

For an accessible review based on experimental literature. Memory as a high level cognitive function.

Dear friends, when other brain and mind resesrchers pay Attention reading all answers I could see now, may be they think about our points of view that have the same or almost near direction. Thinking about this amazing question on my desk I finally finish with a conclusion very simple: every answer is a piece of a Game more complex, but all we are writing here will can not be readed without the others. I'm on the way to resume that fantastic discussion for try to write an consensuated interpretation that help our friend from India and ourself. For finish I could say so exciting that a kind of Crossing words like thisone is the best way to learn and I'm at the same point of all my collegues. Dr. Julián Vaquierzo-Madrid, Director of Capacitas Nauroscience Institute, Spain

I think so. And have the same opinion, then I suggest take myself all answers that gone at similar point of view but from a lot of origens. That work will be facilited the amazing discussion we have. Thanks you Milan. Nice to meet you

basic question.. by my understanding and in concise perception is higher cerebral corroborate of special and general sensation or "cerebral sensibilities" while cognition the whole higher cerebral range of functions that determine our motor responses to various physical stimuli -- incidents, people, objects, sensory experience or the relevant complexities. In neuroanatomophysiological stratification one is at the top of the ascending system while the other is top of descending system essentially the former modifying the later while in absence of former latter hardly attains its shape. nice topic for forum and sharing.

From my understanding, perception is the process of "recognition" and "labelling," while cognition is the process of "understanding" and "making sense" out of something.

For example, consider this photo: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150614124032-01-flooded-zoo-exlarge-169.jpg

Recognizing the object and identifying it as a hippopotamus is perception. But asking what is a hippo doing in front of a shopping mall, and trying to make sense out of the situation, is cognition.

Sensing-->perceiving-->cognizing-->remembering-->recalling. In all these processes we need associating many kinds of things in our mind that relating to what information we receive through our sense organ. So we can understand everything about we sense and perceive.

Remembering and recalling may not involve cognition.Cognition is rather a deeper concept.Differenciating,analyzing,classifying & problem solving do involve cognition.

Is it Hippo or not?

Is there a cognitive conflict or not?