Visual sensation and visual perception enable us to receive information from the world around us and convert the gathered information into a form that provides meaning and understanding. Both sensation and perception are vital in forming an understanding of the world around us, combined they create the Complete Perceptual Experience (CPE). The process of visual sensation begins with reception. Reception is the detection of a stimuli (light) onto receptor cells in the eye, casting an image on the retina. The next stage is transduction. This involves transforming the physical energy of light that has been reflected by objects in the environment, into electrochemical energy which is transmitted to the brain. After transduction the electrochemical information is sent via the neurons along the spinal chord and received by the brain. This stage is called transmission.
             There is no actual distinct point in the total process of visual perception where sensation stops and perception begins as it is a continued cycle of receiving and interpreting information.
             Perception is a psychological and physiological process that involves the selection, organisation and interpretation of the visual information being transmitted to the brain. First the information is selected which involves the isolation of certain features of a stimulus. The chosen information is then organised by the grouping together of similar elements to be interpreted. For each individual, interpretation of a stimulus is influenced by their values, attitudes, beliefs, prior experience and motives. It gives meaning to the visual stimuli received, without which, would be a mass of jumbled images.
             Whereas sensation is a process that is the same for everyone, each person may perceive things differently as can be more clearly explained by the use of this example; My friend and I were walking through a park when we were approached by a large dog. We both received the same image of...