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.
No one dreams, of course, that the great synthetic apperception, for which our modern time seems ripe, will come through the delivery of some hundred addresses, or the discussions of some hundred audiences.
From International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume I Philosophy and Metaphysics by Various
The locale of The Brain's self-expression is the "pineal gland" supposed to be seat of extrasensory apperception in the human brain.
From The Brain by Blade, Alexander
Then shall mother and teacher sweetly lisp of the "fringe of apperception," "the stream of consciousness," "inhibition," "ideal motor action," and "the tabula raza."
From Little Aliens by Kelly, Myra
Fleeing the loud-rolling world with her new apperception, she sped Far to the heart of the moon, where her father, the moon-god, received her.
From Istar of Babylon A Phantasy by Potter, Margaret Horton
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
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.
