The Senses
Submitted by Martin1983 on Sun, 12/31/2006 - 08:35
Tags:
The Five Senses, Plus Several More Commonly Agreed Senses
- Sight/Vision - The ability to see images
- Hearing/Audition - The ability to perceive sound
- Smell/Olfaction - The ability to detect odours
- Touch/Tactition - The ability to feel pressure
- Taste/Gustation - The ability to detect flavours
- Thermoception - The ability to sense heat (or coldness)
- Equilibrioception - The sense of balance, determined by cavities containing fluid in the inner ear
- Nociception - The ability to perceive pain on the skin and organs
- Proprioception - The sense of body awareness, knowing unconsciously where our own body parts are without being able to see or feel them (eg: close your eyes and move your arm around - you'll still know where it is in relation to the rest of you)
Other possible senses
- Hunger - The ability to feel hungry
- Thirst - The ability to feel thirsty
- Depth - The ability to detect distances
- Meaning and reasoning - The ability to understand and work things out
- Language - To be able to speak and have a feel for languages
- Electricity - Being able to feel static electricity in our presence
- Impending danger
- Synesthesia - Where senses combine, such that colour can be perceived in music, and vice versa
Senses That Humans Don't Have
- Electroception - This is the ability of many types of shark and fish to detect electric fields
- Magnetoception - The ability of birds and insects to detect magnetic fields
- Echolocation - The ability of fish to detect their orientation through sound that has been reflected
- The lateral line - The ability of fish to perceive pressure in order to navigate
- Infra-red vision - The ability of owls to see at night in order to hunt and feed
