This book is a sequel on the topics of photoreception and phototransduction covered by Volume I of the series (Biophysics of Photoreception: Molecular and Phototransductive Events), adding the analysis of two other modalities of sensory reception and transduction — the chemical and mechanical ones, which are phylogenetically older. This characterization results not in a succession of three different and uncorrelated moments, but in a fruitful confrontation between experts which usually act separately and in an integration between various particular knowledges. This approach highlights the...

Perception is the first step in the whole of the cognitive processes (attention, learning, memory, categorization, imagery, intuition, inference, comprehension, thought, judgement, expression) which culminate in the reasoning activity and to which emotions make a contribution. The production of perception representations is correlated with the perception events. Such perception representations occur by means of the contribution of two kinds of factors: sensory signals which reproduce the spatio-temporal characteristics of the receptor modifications, and interpretation of the intrinsic...