 In the first place, the sensory information collected by the single senses is distinguished, synthesized, and collated by the higher sensory faculties of the common sense [sensus communis] and the so-called cogitative power [vis cogitativa], to be stored in sensory memory as phantasms, the sensory representations of singulars in their singularity. The active intellect [intellectus agens] uses this sensory information to extract its intelligible content and produce the intelligible species [species intelligibiles], the universal representations of several individuals in their various degrees of formal unity, disregarding their distinctive features and individuating conditions in the process of abstraction.