percept

In psychology and related fields, a percept is the mental representation of an object or event as it is perceived. It results from the brain’s interpretation of sensory input, combining raw data with prior knowledge, expectations, and context to produce an experience of the world.

The percept is distinct from the physical stimulus and from a raw sensory image. It is not a verbatim copy of the external scene but an organized, meaningful interpretation that allows for recognition, categorization, and action. Because it depends on attention and prior learning, the same stimulus can yield different percepts in different situations or for different observers.

Percept formation involves both bottom-up processing (transduction of sensory signals in early sensory areas) and top-down processing (influence from memory, goals, and expectations in higher-order areas). Percepts are often multimodal, integrating information from sight, hearing, touch, and other senses to create a coherent experience. Examples include perceiving a familiar face in a crowd, hearing a melody as a coherent tune, or recognizing a chair as a chair despite variations in lighting or angle.

Key concepts related to percepts include perceptual constancy (stability of perception across changes in distance, lighting, or viewpoint) and perceptual organization (how features are grouped into meaningful wholes). Illusions illustrate the gap between the physical stimulus and the percept, highlighting the constructive nature of perception.

The term is widely used in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and related disciplines to discuss how experiences arise from neural processing, rather than to describe the stimuli themselves.