perception

 The higher organisms possess a much more potent form of consciousness: they possess the faculty of retaining sensations, which is the faculty of perception.

 A "perception" is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things.

 An animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by percepts. Its actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate stimuli, but are directed by an integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. It is able to grasp the perceptual concretes immediately present and it is able to form automatic perceptual associations, but it can go no further.

See also

 medical perception
 medical gaze

References

 Hick C. The art of perception: from the life world to the medical gaze and back again. Med Health Care Philos. 1999;2(2):129-40. PMID: 11080980