# sensation and perception **Opening (not a real abstract):** Sensation and Perception (1981) Fred Dretske Information-processing models of mental activity tend to conflate perceptual and sensory phenomena on the one hand with cognitive and conceptual phenomena on the other. Perception is concerned with the pickup and delivery of information, cognition with its utilization. But these, one is told, are merely different stages in a more or less continuous information-handling process.1 Recognition, identification, and classification (cognitive activities) occur at every phase of the perceptual process. Seeing and hearing are low-grade forms of knowing. I think this is a confusion. It obscures the distinctive role of sensory experience in the entire cognitive process. In order to clarify this point, it will be necessary to examine the way information can be delivered and made available to the cognitive centers without itself qualifying for cognitive attributes—without itself **Authors:** [[dretske]]