apperception
Americannoun
-
the attainment of full awareness of a sensation or idea
-
the act or process of apperceiving
Other Word Forms
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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cept, capt, ceive (take, hold, seize)
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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.
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 Porter Lander MacClintock
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 Alexander Blade
But as Kant's unity of apperception became for Green merely a symbol of the world's inherent intelligibility, the latter did not regard it as an actual process of synthesis.
From John Dewey's logical theory by Delton Thomas Howard
Nine-tenths of every picture is the product, not of perception, but of apperception.
From Browning and the Dramatic Monologue by S. S. (Samuel Silas) Curry
Dewey fails to make a distinction, which might have been useful to him, between Kant's unity of apperception and his productive imagination.
From John Dewey's logical theory by Delton Thomas Howard
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
