In living organisms, the perception relies on sense organs where are located the receptors, molecular entities occurring in the cellular membranes, able to receive chemical (smell, taste) or physical (light, pressure, temperature) stimuli from the external environment and to transduce them in chemical signals within the cell, thus evoking the organism response to a given stimulus. The response can be of chemical or physical nature, e.g. the electric impulse occurring between neurons.

The corresponding devices in robotics are sensors (a cellular receptor mimetics) and effectors (motors, lights, relays, ..., mimetics of organism response).