captation

Captation is a term derived from Latin captatio, from capere “to seize” or “to take.” In English, captation is relatively rare and appears mainly in specialized or French-influenced contexts. The more common English terms are capture, acquisition, or recording.

In media and broadcasting, captation refers to the act of recording or acquiring video and audio from a live event or in the field for later dissemination. It can describe the technical process, the equipment setup, or the production unit responsible for capturing content during a broadcast, concert, or documentary.

In cognitive science and marketing contexts, captation can appear in French-language sources to denote the process of attracting and holding audience attention. English usage typically favors attention capture or attention-grabbing to describe stimuli designed to draw focus, while captation may be encountered in bilingual discussions.

In photography and videography, captation (captation d’image in French) denotes image capture, the acquisition of digital image data by a camera sensor or capturing device; in English, terms like image capture are standard.

The term is distinct from capitation, a financial term referring to a payment model based on per-person units, commonly used in health care and social security. Although similar-sounding, they refer to different concepts and are not interchangeable in technical writing.