Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 3 complete abstracts (631 words), 9 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
The process by which the nature and meaning of sensory stimuli are recognized and interpreted.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Sensory Processing; Processing, Sensory.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Mental Processes
- Narrower topics
- Auditory Perception; Body Image; Depth Perception; Discrimination, Psychological; Eidetic Imagery; Field Dependence-Independence; Illusions; Interoception; Olfactory Perception; Pain Perception; Pattern Recognition, Physiological; Perceptual Distortion; Sensory Deprivation; Sensory Thresholds
- See also
- Sensation
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 528,829 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Perception” (counts retrieved 2026-10-31). 97,472 of them (18.4%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is 2010-2019 with 170,010 records.
Reviews account for 29,294 records (5.5%) and meta-analyses for 2,598. Randomized controlled trials number 19,008 (3.6%) as a share of all records on the topic.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 147,799 |
| 2000-2009 | 113,548 |
| 2010-2019 | 170,010 |
| 2020 onward | 97,472 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 29,294 | 5.5% |
| Meta-analyses | 2,598 | 0.5% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 19,008 | 3.6% |
Method: PubMed query "Perception"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-10-31.
Reading the evidence in psychiatry and psychology
Research on mental health and behaviour relies on questionnaires, interviews and rating scales rather than physical measurements, so how a condition was defined and measured shapes every result. Many studies are observational or small, placebo responses can be large, and findings in one group or culture may not carry over to another. Nothing on this page is advice about diagnosis or treatment; anyone worried about their mental health should talk to a qualified clinician. Check how outcomes were measured, who took part and how long they were followed.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
| Study / authors | Year | Source label / design | Europe PMC citations | Licence / source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal coding enables hyperacuity in event-based vision | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42754584 · DOI · PMC13586331 |
| Retinal curl as a functional signal for heading estimation beyond the focus of expansion | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42788718 · DOI · PMC13614786 |
| Retinotopic coding organizes the interaction between internally and externally oriented brain networks | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42771535 · DOI · PMC13597088 |
Temporal coding enables hyperacuity in event-based vision [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Although the eye may appear static during fixation, it is in constant motion-transforming visual input into rich spatio-temporal streams of neuronal activity.
- Closing excerpt
- Together, these findings offer a new perspective on visual perception, open pathways for advancing neuromorphic engineering and energy-efficient AI vision systems, and provide a framework for testing hypotheses about biological vision.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (190 words)
Although the eye may appear static during fixation, it is in constant motion-transforming visual input into rich spatio-temporal streams of neuronal activity. These movements challenge the classical view that visual acuity derives from spatial sampling, suggesting that hyperacuity can emerge from precise temporal encoding. Here we show that artificial systems can exploit this principle using retina-like event-based (EB) sensing, a neuromorphic approach in which the sensor emits asynchronous spikes in response to luminance changes. Using an EB camera undergoing controlled "fixational" motion over tiny, pixelated images, we generated datasets in which recognition depends on sub-pixel information. We found that artificial neural networks trained on these spatio-temporal event streams relied crucially on the precise temporal information and outperformed conventional frame-based models. The learned representations also supported Vernier-style sub-pixel discrimination, demonstrating hyperacuity-like behavior in the artificial bio-mimetic system. These results show that active event-based sensing can use precise timing to recover spatial details that are unrecoverable from a static single frame. Together, these findings offer a new perspective on visual perception, open pathways for advancing neuromorphic engineering and energy-efficient AI vision systems, and provide a framework for testing hypotheses about biological vision.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42754584 · DOI · PMC13586331
Retinal curl as a functional signal for heading estimation beyond the focus of expansion [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Prevailing models aiming at explaining heading assume that humans need to recover the Focus of Expansion (FoE) while accounting for eye-movement-induced rotation.
- Closing excerpt
- These findings suggest that the brain exploits the geometry of gaze stabilization to simplify navigation, treating retinal curl as a functional signal rather than noise to be filtered.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (205 words)
Prevailing models aiming at explaining heading assume that humans need to recover the Focus of Expansion (FoE) while accounting for eye-movement-induced rotation. We propose an alternative: the visual system utilizes mean retinal curl from fixations as a surrogate signal for heading, rendering the explicit recovery of the FoE unnecessary. Stationary participants viewed simulated walking paths on a large screen while fixating on points on the projected ground texture at varying eccentricities - a natural behavior inducing sustained retinal curl. Participants continuously reported perceived heading in 3D scene coordinates. To isolate the role of retinal curl, we employed a real-time manipulation that kept translational flow constant while the foveal curl component was either unaltered, canceled, or over-canceled. Under natural conditions (unaltered), participants exhibited systematic heading biases opposite the direction of gaze. Crucially, these biases vanished when we canceled the expected curl and flipped when we over-canceled it, identifying retinal curl as the specific driver of perceptual bias. We modeled these results using a simple feedback controller and a ring-attractor neural network featuring gaze-contingent inhibition and a 'straight-ahead' prior. These findings suggest that the brain exploits the geometry of gaze stabilization to simplify navigation, treating retinal curl as a functional signal rather than noise to be filtered.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42788718 · DOI · PMC13614786
Retinotopic coding organizes the interaction between internally and externally oriented brain networks [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- The human brain seamlessly integrates internally generated thoughts with incoming sensory information, yet the large-scale networks that support these functions - the internal default network (DN) and external dorsal attention network (dATN) - are traditionally viewed as functionally independent.
- Closing excerpt
- Taken together, our results suggest that retinotopic coding underpins the dynamic coordination of perception and thought in the human brain.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (236 words)
The human brain seamlessly integrates internally generated thoughts with incoming sensory information, yet the large-scale networks that support these functions - the internal default network (DN) and external dorsal attention network (dATN) - are traditionally viewed as functionally independent. This raises a crucial question: how does the brain integrate information across these seemingly noninteractive systems? Here, using densely sampled 7T fMRI, individualized resting-state parcellations, and voxel-wise population-receptive-field mapping, we show that these internal/external networks are more interlocked than previously thought. Spontaneous DN and dATN activity during rest is uncorrelated at the network level. However, voxel-scale functional coupling across networks is shaped by the latent visual field preferences of individual voxels in each network, as measured during independent retinotopic mapping. Voxels that share visual field preferences exhibit stronger spontaneous coupling than those with divergent preferences. These retinotopically specific interactions are bivalent: DN voxels with negative (suppressive) visual response amplitudes are anticorrelated with matched (positive) dATN voxels, while those DN voxels with positive response amplitudes are positively correlated. Thus, distinct subpopulations of visually tuned DN voxels participate in spatially specific interactions with the dATN. Further, retinotopic coding is intrinsic to the DN, persisting even during periods when the DN signal is elevated. These findings reveal a latent, voxel-level architecture of retinotopically grounded interactions between the DN and dATN. Taken together, our results suggest that retinotopic coding underpins the dynamic coordination of perception and thought in the human brain.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42771535 · DOI · PMC13597088
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Body appreciation and its psychological correlates: A systematic review and meta-analysis [4]
- Research article Global estimates on the number of people blind or visually impaired by cataract: a meta-analysis from 2000 to 2020 [5]
- Research article Serial dependence in visual perception: A meta-analysis and review [6]
- Research article Functionality appreciation and its correlates: Systematic review and meta-analysis [7]
- Research article Normative body image development: A longitudinal meta-analysis of mean-level change [8]
- Research article Comparative efficacy and safety of all kinds of intraocular lenses in presbyopia-correcting cataract surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis [9]
Full-text reviews on EvidenceLib
Open-access review articles about this topic, reproduced in full with authors, licence and references.
Peptidoglycan Muropeptides: Release, Perception, and Functions as Signaling Molecules
Oihane Irazoki, Sara B. Hernandez, Felipe Cava · Frontiers in Microbiology 2019 · CC BY 4.0
Differential insular cortex sub-regional atrophy in neurodegenerative diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Yasmine Y. Fathy, Susanne E. Hoogers, Henk W. Berendse et al. · Brain Imaging and Behavior 2019 · CC BY 4.0
References
- Assa E, Rivkind A, Kreiserman M, Khan FS, Khan S, Ahissar E. Temporal coding enables hyperacuity in event-based vision. . 2026. PMID 42754584 · DOI · PMC13586331
- Zorpala KI, López-Moliner J. Retinal curl as a functional signal for heading estimation beyond the focus of expansion. . 2026. PMID 42788718 · DOI · PMC13614786
- Steel A, Angeli PA, Robertson C. Retinotopic coding organizes the interaction between internally and externally oriented brain networks. . 2026. PMID 42771535 · DOI · PMC13597088
- Linardon J, McClure Z, Tylka TL, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz M. Body appreciation and its psychological correlates: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Body Image. 2022. PMID 35878528 · DOI
- Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study, GBD 2019 Blindness and Vision Impairment Collaborators. Global estimates on the number of people blind or visually impaired by cataract: a meta-analysis from 2000 to 2020. Eye (Lond). 2024. PMID 38461217 · DOI · PMC11269584
- Manassi M, Murai Y, Whitney D. Serial dependence in visual perception: A meta-analysis and review. J Vis. 2023. PMID 37642639 · DOI · PMC10476445
- Linardon J, Messer M, Tylka TL. Functionality appreciation and its correlates: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Body Image. 2023. PMID 36796304 · DOI
- Lacroix E, Smith AJ, Husain IA, Orth U, von Ranson KM. Normative body image development: A longitudinal meta-analysis of mean-level change. Body Image. 2023. PMID 36965235 · DOI
- Li J, Sun B, Zhang Y, Hao Y, Wang Z, Liu C, et al.. Comparative efficacy and safety of all kinds of intraocular lenses in presbyopia-correcting cataract surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Ophthalmol. 2024. PMID 38627651 · DOI · PMC11020619
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-11-04; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-11-04.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.