Perception Observables

OVERVIEW

The purpose of this page is to track CRG priorities and work related to review and clean up of the observable entity hierarchy as it related to the following kinds of perception:

• visual perception (seeing)
• auditory perception (hearing)
• gustatory perception (tasting)
• olfactory perception (smelling)
• tactile perception (touching)
  • tactile temperature perception
  • tactile vibration perception

Summary of Findings:

• Concepts referring to sensation and perception are frequently conflated
• There is inconsistency in FSNs across sensory modality  (e.g., concept for touch perception function has FSN 'touch perception', while concept for visual perception function has FSN 'visual perception function')
• There are gaps in concepts across sensory modality (e.g., concepts exist for sensory functions but not perception functions for some modalities)
• It's unclear how "sensory function status: x' differs from 'x observable' (see table below) 

Activities To Date:

Uma Vaidyanathan led the review of sensory and perception concepts in the |Observable entity (observable entity) | hierarchy, including review of the gold standard textbook written on Sensation and Perception (add link here). Piper Allyn Ranallo reviewed and harmonized the definitions of concepts in the UMLS (add link here, add artifacts below). The team created graphics depicting current and proposed concepts for perception, sensation, and integrated sensory perception (add links for graphics here).

Immediate Next Steps (in process)

• The CRG is working with Daniel Karlsson to understand what changes are required in the the observable entity hierarchy
• Requesting editorial guidance around modeling functions, processes and states in the observable entity hierarchy
• The CRG is working to understand the distinction between processes modeled in the | Process (qualifier value)| and |Process (observable entity)|  hierarchies

FUNCTIONS, PROCESSES AND OTHER OBSERVABLE ENTITIES 

¹ Function is implied based on parent concept (|Function (observable entity)|

X Function (function)	Any function involved in sensation (sensory transduction and transmission of sensory information to brain) and perception (generation of mental representation) of stimuli in the particular sensory modality
X Sensation Function (function)	Sensory transduction and transmission of sensory information to brain in the particular sensory modality
X Perception Function (function)	Generation of mental representation of real or imagined sensory stimulus in the particular sensory modality
Observable of (sensation of) X (process, quality, or disposition)	Observable of any function related to sensation and perception of stimuli in the particular sensory modality Is use of term 'sensation of' arbitrary, i.e., is 'sensation or perception' implied? is there value in having specific concepts for 'sensation', 'perception' and 'sensation or perception'?
Sensory function status: X (quality)	Need to better understand the meaning of status here
Ability to (quality)	Need to better understand the relationship between a function and an ability - a function is what endows a person with the capacity to realize processes and thus states (defined as qualities or dispositions) whereas an ability seems to be a summary statement about the quality of the function (what is this quality exactly - pathology, other?)

Questions

  Do concepts where the FSN has the term 'function' qualified only by the sensory modality term  (i.e., hearing function, visual function) refer to any function (i.e., either sensory or perception function)?

TYPES OF OBSERVABLE ENTITY CONCEPTS

CURRENT SUBSUMPTION RELATIONSHIPS

Figure 1:  Current State - SNOMED International Daily Build 2021.01.20