The mechanism whereby perceptual stimuli are redescribed from perceptual arrays into rudimentary representations which support more complex concepts. The term was coined by developmental psychologist Jean Mandler, who argues that perceptual meaning analysis represents the means whereby in early infancy children develop the fundamental plank of the conceptual system known as the image schema. Perceptual meaning analysis takes place when perceptual arrays of particular kinds are observed to co-occur with particular functional consequences.

For instance, a functional consequence of spatial arrays involving three-dimensional volumetric entities is that they provide a support/containment function. This information, which is distinct in kind from the purely sensory information with which it is associated, comes to form the rudimentary concept container.