Article "an"

Hi

That's interesting and I had to look it up. Usually, you see 'ESP' or 'extra sensory perception' without an article. It can just mean that the person has power of perception beyond the usual forms of perception:

- I don't know how you knew that - you must have ESP!

However, if you are looking at the subject in detail, there are in fact different types of ESP - telepa

Thanks for the answer Dave.

What if I wanted to use it as a title.

So the title of the article is: What is extra sensory perception? What is ESP?

Then I think I would need to leave out the article "an"?

I agree. That title looks fine to me

Dave

Newguest Do I need the article "an" before the nouns in the sentences above?

"perception" is not countable; therefore it cannot take the indefinite article "a" or "an".

CJ

Hi CalifJim

I'm afraid I'm going to have to beg to differ. The word can mean the mental entity that is grasped or created in the act of perception:

- In psychology, bottom-up processing holds that a perception must be constructed internally

- In the practice of mindfulness, the content of a perception is less important than the experience of awareness

- Bishop

In my experience, "extra sensory perception" is only ever used uncountably. By itself, "perception" can be either countable or uncountable. The countable form is often followed by "of" (e.g. "perceptions of Italy").

Hi

Here are some quotes that seem natural to me:

- Spanning multiple start-ups and more than 50 years of life experience, I have developed an extra-sensory perception about life and business

- The Chinese have long believed that certain animals have an extra-sensory perception that warns of an impending disaster

- If you could have an extra sensory perception, w

dave_anonHere are some quotes

OK, now I look, there do seem to be quite a few hits for the countable form ...

dave_anonSome dogs can smell cancer in people, so I guess technically they have an extra sensory perception.

Very few of your examples of this type seem plausible to me. In my vocabulary "a perception" is not a synonym for "a sense", so I wouldn't use "perception" as shown above any more than I would use it in "Vision is one of the five perceptions". In many

Hi

I'll bow out on one last point. It relates to the first example in my last post but one

If you believe top-down theory then, yes, the dog is just using the sense of smell in the same way that it might, say, sniff out cocaine in airport baggage. And then you'd be right - it's a foolish example

However, the bottom-up theory would allow that, above and beyond the smell