ABSTRACT
Perception seems a natural way to start for the author's analysis of cognition, since it is concerned with the input and the initial stages of the processing of information in either the human being or the automaton. Perception involves the classification of novel stimuli or combinations of stimuli, and the recognition of familiar stimuli, or sets of stimuli, where the interpretation of the input is now clearly connected with the processes of memory. The classification is partial and hierarchical and takes place at the first stage, second stage, and perhaps at a third and fourth stage in the visual cortext and even areas anterior to this in the human brain. The perceptual process is that of pattern recognition and, although this occurs at all levels, including the conceptual levels of human behaviour, the author considers in the narrow context of visual pattern recognition.
