▪ I. percept, n. Philos. and Psychol.
(ˈpɜːsɛpt)
[f. L. perceptum (a thing) perceived, neut. of pa. pple. of percipĕre to perceive: after concept.]
1. The object of perception.
| 1837 Sir W. Hamilton Logic iii. (1866) I. 42 Whether it might not..be proper to introduce the term percept for the object of perception. 1880 Sidgwick in 19th Cent. VII. 355 In any act of perception the matter that is percept or object is commonly outside the organism of the percipient. 1964 M. Critchley Developmental Dyslexia xiii. 78 Not only is it a matter of defective perception, but it is also one of inadequate association of lexical percepts. Ibid., This process of linking one percept with another is where the principal fault may lie. 1973 Nature 6 July 54/2 The Necker cube has been viewed as an ambiguous figure whose configuration and accompanying instructions usually limit the number of percepts to two. 1974 Sci. Amer. Jan. 126/3 No one else smelled it [sc. poison gas], she was assured. Her enemy was so ingenious, she retorted, that his gas was odorless! Her experience was thus no percept at all, but a projection from internal ideas. 1976 Smythies & Corbett Psychiatry v. 55 This man had a normal percept but attached a special, personal meaning to it which was quite false. |
2. The mental product or result of perceiving as distinguished from the action.
| 1876 H. Maudsley Physiol. Mind v. 273 A percept is the abstract of sensations, so a concept is the abstract of percepts. 1883 Chamb. Jrnl. 82 Has the mental percept been evoked without any antecedent sense-percept? 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 399 Word-images as integral components of percepts and concepts. 1949 Mind LVIII. 450 William James sometimes used the word ‘percept’ to refer to the content of consciousness during perception; it is this fact which has made the name ‘Percept Theory’ seem to me appropriate for the particular theory of perceptual consciousness which he himself supported. 1970 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. LXXXIII. 66 Sex responses are numerous... The number of human percepts is low. 1972 Sci. Amer. Sept. 47/2 It is along this pathway that the visual image formed on the retina by light rays entering the eye is transformed into a visual percept, on the basis of which appropriate commands to the muscles are issued. 1976 Word 1971 XXVII. 226 Each physical stimulus, after interpretation by the mental processes, will result in a percept. |
▪ II. † perˈcept, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. L. percept-, ppl. stem of percipĕre.]
trans. = perceive.
| 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 59 And is not the highest speculation of it percepted and perfected by manuall instruments, and those fallacious, too, as themselves complain? |