perceptual and the intellectual level

[keannu]

Source : Korean SAT Reading 2021 by Korean Education Broadcasting System - 213p.12

In no way is the use of the word “concept” intended to suggest that perceiving is an intellectual operation.
The processes in question must be thought of as occurring within the visual sector of the nervous system. But the term concept is intended to suggest a striking similarity between the elementary activities of the senses and the higher ones of thinking or reasoning. So great is this similarity which many psychologists attributed the achievements of the senses to secret aid supposedly rendered them by the intellect. Those psychologists spoke of unconscious conclusions or computations because they assumed that perception itself could do no more than mechanically register the impingements of the outer world.
It seems now that the same mechanisms operate on both the perceptual and the intellectual level, so that terms like concept, judgment, logic, abstraction, conclusion, computation, are needed in describing the work of the senses.

What does the underlined mean? It's hard to understand.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It's not clear to me what "same mechanisms" it's referring to.

The writer might be saying that our senses and our reason are so closely connected that they can't be separated. That is, they use the same mechanisms.

Let's see if anyone else has a better insight.

 

[SoothingDave]

In order to understand how our senses work, we need to use the same terms usually thought of as only applying to higher, intellectual functions.