apperception
Americannoun
-
the attainment of full awareness of a sensation or idea
-
the act or process of apperceiving
Other Word Forms
- apperceptive adjective
- apperceptively adverb
- preapperception noun
- unapperceptive adjective
Etymology
Origin of apperception
First recorded in 1745–55; from French or directly from New Latin (Leibnitz) apperceptiōn-, stem of apperceptiō. See ap- 1, perception
Explanation
Apperception is how your mind puts new information in context. You get a perception of a chair through your eyes, but apperception is how your mind relates it to chairs you've seen before. We have many perceptions: information we take in through our senses, like "It's cloudy today." An apperception goes one step further by considering the perception in relation to things you’ve perceived in the past. "There's Julia" is a perception, but "Julia is my friend" is an apperception, because it's based on past experience. "My stomach hurts" is a perception, but "I might throw up" is an apperception. Apperception is a sophisticated mental process that keeps developing through our lives.
Vocabulary lists containing apperception
Flowers for Algernon
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capt, cept, ceive, List 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is the “transcendental unity of consciousness” of Kant—his synthetic unity of apperception.
From Hegel's Philosophy of Mind by Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
There was one in every apperception center and there were hundreds more throughout The Brain, and their purpose was to replenish the liquid insulation which shielded the sensitive electric nervepaths of The Brain.
From The Brain by Blade, Alexander
He thus emphasizes in apperception the connexion with the self as resulting from the sum of antecedent experience.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 3 "Apollodorus" to "Aral" by Various
But it is certainly true that the modern child of six or seven has so little apperception material for physical horrors that they do not take any deep hold upon him.
From Literature in the Elementary School by MacClintock, Porter Lander
It follows naturally from the principle of apperception: the interpretation of the unknown in terms of the known; the extension of accumulated experience to the interpretation of new experiences.
From The Value of Money by Anderson, Benjamin M.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
