Human senses include touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. The brain gets information from the organs that correspond to each sense. There are other human senses as well as the basic five. Balance and spatial awareness are lesser known senses. The human senses are explained here.

A woman touching tall grass in a field

Touch is communicated to the brain through neurons in the skin. (Image credit: Westend61 via Getty Images)

According to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, touch is the first sense that humans have. Touch is a communication between the brain and the skin. Pressure, temperature, light touch, vibration, pain and other sensations are all part of the touch sense.

Touch seems to be very important to a human's well-being, as it is a sense used to interact with the world. According to a study by the University of California, Berkeley, touch can convey compassion from one person to another.

Humans can be influenced by touch. According to six studies by psychologists at Harvard University and Yale University, touching something with a texture can affect a person's decisions.

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3D cutaway illustration of a human eye

The outer lens of the eye, called the cornea, is dome shaped. (Image credit: CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)

The sight is a complex process. Light reflects off something in the sky. The light that goes through the hole of the eye is bends by the transparent outer layer of the eye. The iris, which is the colored part of the eye, is similar to the shutter of a camera.

Most of the light is focused on the eye. The light goes through the lens and focuses the light.

The light is bent by the lens of the eye and focused on the retina. The American Optometric Association says that these cells are shaped like rods and cones. Light is translated into colors by cones. Light is translated into motion by the rods. Humans are able to see when there is limited light. The light's electrical impulses are sent to the brain from the light's translation.

People without sight may be able to compensate for it with enhanced hearing, taste, touch and smell. They may have better memory and language skills than those who are blind.

In the case of being profoundly blind, the brain is able to use information at its disposal to interact with the environment in a more effective way.

Hearing

The human ear is a labyrinth. The sound travels through the ears and into the canal. Sound waves reach the tympanic membranes. There is a thin sheet of tissue that vibrates.

It travels to the middle ear. There are three small bones called the malleus, incus and stapes that vibrate. According to the National Library of Medicine, the stapes bone pushes a structure called the oval window in and out, which causes the organ of Corti to vibrate. The spiral organ is used to amplify sound. There are tiny hair cells in the organ. The impulses travel to the brain.

People retain their sense of balance because the air pressure in the middle ear is equal to the air pressure in the atmosphere. The sense of equilibrium is regulated by the vestibular complex in the inner ear. The brain uses the vestibulocochlear nerve to carry sound and equilibrium information.

Have you ever heard a recording of your voice that didn't sound right? Some aspects of your voice sound different to others around you. The sound of your voice will be detected by the person next to you. The same will happen in your ears as the speech is being produced from within you.

The sound of your vocal cords travels up through your skull to your ears. Waves stretch out more as they move through bones.

Lower in pitch. The result is a voice with a slightly different tone to what other people hear.

Smell

A man smelling plants in a garden

Humans have 400 smelling receptors. (Image credit: John Howard via Getty Images)

According to the National Institute of Health, humans may be able to smell over a trillion smells. The olfactory cleft is located on the roof of the nose and next to the olfactory bulb. The cleft has nerve endings that send odors to the brain.

Humans are just as good as dogs when it comes to smell. According to research published in the May 11, 2017, issue of the journal Science, humans can discriminate between trillions of different odors.

According to the author of the new review, the sense of smell is just as good in humans as it is in other mammals. The Rockefeller University study was published in the journal Science in March of last year.

According to the Monell Chemical Senses Center, humans have a large number of smellingreceptors. The human brain is much more complex than that of animals that are super smellers.

Poor smelling ability can be a symptom of a medical condition. According to the journal Schizophrenia Research, the reduced ability to smell is a symptom of schizophrenia.

The ability to smell can be diminished by old age. More than 75% of people over the age of 80 may have major olfactory impairment according to a 2006 paper.

Taste

A magnified image shows oval-shaped taste buds on the tongue.

This magnified image shows oval-shaped taste buds on the tongue. (Image credit: Ed Reschke via Getty Images)

Salty, sweet, sour and bitter are some of the different tastes that the gustatory sense divides into. There is more than one taste, and it's called a fifth taste. Many other flavors have not been discovered. It's not a taste. The National Library of Medicine says it's a pain signal.

According to the NLM, the sense of taste aided in human evolution. A bitter or sour taste indicates that a plant is rotten. The food was rich in vitamins and minerals.

There is a smell in the buds. There are up to 4,000 taste buds in adults. They line the back of the throat and other parts of the body. The sensory cells on the buds form a capsule. There are small taste hairs on the tips of the capsule. Chemicals are bound to the cells by the hairs.

There is a myth that the tongue has specific areas for each flavor. The five tastes can be detected on all parts of the tongue. The majority of the taste buds respond to a few of the basic tastes. Cells have different levels of sensitivity.

Some cells are more sensitive to sweet, while others are more bitter, sour and salty. All of the information from the different parts of the tongue is combined to create a flavor.

Half of the sensory cells can only respond to a single taste. Their job is to let people know how salty or sweet something is.

The perception of taste in the brain is helped by other factors. According to the journal Flavour, the smell of the food affects the brain's perception of taste. A smell is sent to the mouth. A person with a stuffy nose may not be able to taste food correctly. Sense of touch contributes to taste.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, a burnt tongue can be classified as a first degree burn but can heal in a few days. taste buds don't completely die when exposed to hot food

The upper layers of our taste buds are removed when we scold the tongue. Basal cells are part of the bundle of flavour- detecting cells. When you replace the gustatory receptor cells every ten days or so, the regenerated cells quickly become replacements for the original cells. The journal Archives Italiennes de Biologie states that 10% of cells are new to taste buds.

The sense of space

A woman does a proprioception test

A patient may be asked to touch their nose, then the examiner's finger as part of a proprioception test. (Image credit: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)
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There is a second sense that deals with how your brain understands where your body is in space. This sense is related to perception.

Our limbs and muscles have proprioception. Persimony allows a person to touch their finger to the tip of their nose even if their eyes are closed. A person can climb stairs without looking at them. Poor proprioception can cause people to be clumsy.

People who have poor proprioception, the ability to sense when someone presses down on your skin, may have a genetic variation that is passed down from generation to generation. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The lead author of the study said in a statement that the patient's version of the PIEZO2 may not work.

Additional senses & variations

A woman balancing on a beam

Neuron sensors sense movement to control balance (Image credit: Oliver Rossi via Getty Images)

Most people don't see the subtle senses. The tilt of the head and balance can be controlled by neuron sensors. People can keep track of their limbs with the help of specific kinestheticreceptors. Oxygen can be detected in certain arteries of the bloodstream.

People don't see the same things in different ways. synesthesia allows people to see sounds as colors or smells as different colors.

Additional resources

In this article by Scientific American, you can find out more about how the look and smell of food affects taste. You can see a video about how we see on the website.

Bibliography

The word touch is used. The entry "touch" is in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

resources for teachers The American Optometric Association has something called "caring for your eyes".

Structural and functional connections change in early blindness. There is an article in the journal titled "plosone" which can be found in the new tab.

The brain wires itself to enhance other senses. The news-releases are on theeurekalert.org.

The hearing and the cochlea were mentioned. The National Library of Medicine has a collection oftomy videos.

There is balance and otitis media. The journal is open in a new tab.

Humans are able to identify more than one trillion smells. The National Institute of Health has news events on its website.

Poor human Olfaction is a 19th century myth. There is a new tab on the science website.

The effects of aging on smell and taste The Postgraduate Medical Journal can be found at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

How much of what we like comes from the smell? There is an article titled " Flavour" in the Flavour Journal.

The search for taste progenitor cells is related. The archives italiennes de biologie was published in 2010.