Introduction to Psychology, 7th Edition by Clifford T. Morgan, Richard A. King, John R. Weisz, John Schopler (eBook)

15. Apperception

Apperception is "the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole." 

Leibniz defines apperception as “consciousness, or the reflective knowledge of this internal state.” “Something not given to all souls, nor at all times to a given soul.”

Simply, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience. Apperception is thus a general term for all mental processes in which a presentation is brought into connection with an already existent and systematized mental conception, and thereby is classified, explained or, in a word, understood.

Example: A rich child and a poor child walking together come across a $10 bill on the sidewalk. The rich child says it is not lot of money whereas the poor child says it is a lot of money. The difference lies in how they apperceive the same event – the lens of past experience through which they see and value (or devalue) the money. 

Application: In education the teacher should fully acquaint himself with the mental development of the pupil, in order that he may make full use of what the pupil already knows.

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Sources:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/#AppDesUnc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apperception#cite_note-Dagobert_D_1972-1

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