Visceral sensibility immediately registers excitations gathered by the five ‘exteroceptive’ senses even before the are fully processed by the brain. Walking down a dark street at night in a dangerous part of town, your lungs throw a spasm before you consciously see and can recognize as human the shadow thrown across your path […] Your heart stops before consciously feel the tap on your shoulder and identify it as the greeting of a friend. The immediacy of visceral perception is so radical that it can be said without exaggeration to precede the exteroceptive sense perceptions. It anticipates the translation of the sight or sound touch perception into something recognizable associated with an identifiable object. Call that ‘something recognizable’ a quality (or property).
Massumi, Parables for the Virtual, 60-1