percepts

A percept is the mental content of a sensory experience—the object or event as it appears to a perceiver. In discussions of mind and perception, a percept is the conscious experience that results from processing sensory information, and it is often distinguished from sensation (the raw data registered by sense organs) and from perception (the broader cognitive activity that organizes, interprets, and gives meaning to stimuli).

The term is used across disciplines with slightly different emphases. In philosophy, percepts are sometimes discussed in relation to theories of perception, such as direct realism, which holds that percepts reflect objects in the world, and representationalism, which treats percepts as mental representations of those objects. Kantian views distinguish between phenomena, as perceived content structured by the mind, and noumena, the things-in-themselves beyond experience.

In psychology, a percept is the unit of conscious experience arising from perceptual organization. Perceptual constancies, ambiguity, and multisensory integration illustrate how percepts can change with context while the underlying stimuli remain constant. In clinical contexts, abnormal percepts such as illusory or hallucinatory experiences are of interest because they reveal the processes by which perception can diverge from external reality.

In artificial intelligence and cognitive science, the term is used to describe the information an agent receives from its sensors at a given moment, often including prior knowledge or internal state that shapes interpretation. A percept guides decision making and action, bridging sensation and higher-level cognition.

See also: perception, sensation, perceptual psychology, representationalism, phenomenology.