International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

According to Fr. CRICK and Ch. KOCH: "It is important to distinguish between an explicit and an implicit representation. An explicit representation is something that is symbolized without further processing. An implicit representation contains the same information but requires further processing. The pattern of colored dots on a television screen, for example, contains an implicit representation of objects (say, a person's face), but only the dots and their locations are explicit. When you see a face on the screen, there must be neurons in your brain whose firing, in some sense, symbolizes that face" (1992, p.112).

In other words, patterns of perceived signals acquire meaning only if we already have established internal neural patterns more or less in resonance with that which we perceive. Such patterns have necessarily a genetic base and were constructed on this base by learning. Moreover, learning differs with social and cultural settings, which explains that similar perceptions may lead to different representations in different persons.