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Perception is a function that endows a person with the capacity to mentally represent internal and external stimuli detected by sensory organs. The realization of this function is the mental representation of the detected stimulus. The inputs to the perception function are typically the outputs of a sensory process. However, perception sometimes occurs in the absence of any sensory stimulus, for example, in hallucination.

Note: (see URU discussion)

The perception process is the process by which sensory outputs (signal generated by a real or imagined sensory stimulus) are transformed to produce both a mental representation and phenomenological experience of the stimulus.  At the physical level, the perception process is instantiated by the perception function - the set of anatomic structures, physiological processes, and rules governing physiological processes that initiate, perform, sustain, and terminate the conversion of sensory outputs to a perceptual experience (i.e., the perception function).  

sensation

1. the process or experience of perceiving through the senses. See sensory system.

2. an irreducible unit of experience produced by stimulation of a sensory receptor and the resultant activation of a specific brain center, producing basic awareness of a sound, odor, color, shape, or taste or of temperature, pressure, pain, muscular tension, position of the body, or change in the internal organs associated with such processes as hunger, thirst, nausea, and sexual excitement. Also called sense datum; sense impression; sensum.

perception