title: Models for sensation and perception: a selective history.
abstract: This paper is a historical survey, for nonspecialists, of models used to account for sensation and perception. Emphasis is placed on several crucial ideas that have given rise to major changes in explanatory models: namely, geometrical optics, receptive fields and systems or computational approaches. The nature of sensory coding and neural representation is briefly considered against this background.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004739:England; D005858:Germany; D006115:Greece; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009462:Neurology / Q000266:history; D009484:Neuropsychology / Q000266:history*; D010827:Physiology / Q000266:history; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology*; D014481:United States; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*