The law of specific nerve energies, first proposed by Johannes Peter Müller in 1835, is that the nature of perception is defined by the pathway over which the sensory information is carried.
For example, pressing on the eye elicits sensations of flashes of light because the neurons in the retina send a signal to the occipital lobe.
For example, the visual experience from light shining into the eye, or from a poke in the eye, arises from some special quality of the energy carried by optic nerve, and the auditory experience from sound coming into the ear, or from electrical stimulation of the cochlea, arises from some different, special quality of the energy carried by the auditory nerve.
In 1945, Roger Sperry showed that it is the location in the brain to which nerves attach that determines experience.
Sperry showed similar results in other animals including mammals (rats), this work contributing to his Nobel Prize in 1981.