ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the way in which stimulus structures lead to meaningful sensations and to adequate behaviour. The relation between a physical stimulus and the resulting sensation is not likely to be fixed, but a fixed relation between sensation and response is equally unlikely. Although based upon the assumed locations of sensory mechanisms, this distinction is usually associated with the idea that learning and memory functions and the assignment of meaning to a stimulus are not assumed to be involved at a peripheral level. A sensory mechanism that involves factors related to the assignment of meaning to a stimulus may be considered to be of a higher hierarchical level. If a neural excitation pattern formed at a higher hierarchic level is subject to interpretation, this excitation pattern must be a somatotopically or spatially ordered representation of the stimulus information.
