Talk:Sense

What about

unify the articles "Sense" & "Sensory system"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lenangreal (talk • contribs) 19:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Unsorted text

Emotion How come this isn't included? It's such a basic and proven sense, it's retarded that no one has posted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.54.118.125 (talk) 00:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

There are over 27 senses in the human body, they include the sense of hunger and thirst! Put that in your pipe and smoke it Marshall!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.113.48.17 (talk) 12:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I second the sense of "hunger and thirst".--Mark v1.0 (talk) 02:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Like pain, thirst is a motivational attention grabber that causes the brain to give at least some attention and action to finding and drinking water. What is being sensed is not motivation or attention, but rather an internal sense of blood pressure that drops as we lose water through sweat or urine. There are thousands of such internal chemical senses that detect the amount of sugar in the blood, the acid/alkaline balance (ph) of the blood, the amount of thyroid hormone (TSH) in the blood, the amount of calcium in the blood, the amount of leukotrienes in the blood, etc. It is not practical to describe them all in an article on the senses. Greensburger (talk) 05:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Breathing

From my diving lessons I remember there is some CO2 sensor in your spine (neck) that forces you to take a breath when the CO2 level in your lungs gets too high. Something to add under internal sensors. Ramonw (talk) 09:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Ultraviolet

Some animals can detect ultraviolet light. This should be included in this article. This is from the current Wikipedia article "Ultraviolet": "Some animals, including birds, reptiles, and insects such as bees, can see into the near ultraviolet. Many fruits, flowers, and seeds stand out more strongly from the background in ultraviolet wavelengths as compared to human color vision. Scorpions glow or take on a yellow to green color under UV illumination. Many birds have patterns in their plumage that are invisible at usual wavelengths but observable in ultraviolet, and the urine and other secretions of some animals, including dogs, cats, and human beings, is much easier to spot with ultraviolet.

Many insects use the ultraviolet wavelength emissions from celestial objects as references for flight navigation."

71.249.106.22 (talk) 03:28, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought of this for a moment as well, but it still seems to fall under the category of sense of sight. Detection of ultraviolet light by itself doesn't seem to qualify as a separate sense. --76.30.237.113 (talk) 16:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Magnetoception

There is an unreferenced fact in the Magnetoception section claiming evidence for this sense in humans. The citation needed tag has been there since March 2008 so I shall remove it now. 124.171.189.135 (talk) 14:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The Magnetoception section in this article still claims evidence for this sense in humans while the main Magnetoception article points out that there is very little if any evidence for this. Either this should be citation needed or the claim should be removed completely. 83.233.37.141 12:49, 29 March 2010 (CET)

Humidity

Hi newbie here. Just wondering about the ability to sense humidity? Sorry if I did this wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.84.56 (talk) 05:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be on to something. What about our sense of hunger and thirst, heat or where parts of our bodies are. I found these extra senses in The Book of General Ignorance, a QI book and maybe it should be included. Also why is balance under non-human senses and not human senses as well, I know its talking about Ctenophores but humans have the sense of balance, sense being the opritive word.82.33.125.160 (talk) 20:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

There seems to be some particularly lame vandalism on the page, particularly here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense#Vision —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.79.169 (talk) 23:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Sense of vector

Hi. What about sense as in 5. Definition of http://www.openmathtext.org/lecture_notes/vector_calculus_book4.pdf ? Tadeusz Malinowski 08:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Hearing

Should the ability to tell from which direction the sound is coming not be included in this section? After all depth perception, which I suppose is the equivilant for sight is included in that section. --91.109.5.176 (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Octopi

"In contrast, an octopus has no or limited proprioception due to the complicated shapes their tentacles can form."

Is there any (scientific) evidence to support this? --193.63.48.253 12:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything to verify it, so have removed it (edit performed at 14:42, 22 November 2007). If someone can validate the claim please feel free to reinstate. Manning (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

General Stuff

People: I m not english speaker but i think "sense" derseves a desambiguation page. Sense is not only corporal senses, we say also "nonsense" for a silly thing, "commonsense" etc

EntmootsOfTrolls would have liked this article to be part of User:EntmootsOfTrolls/WikiProject Body, Cognition and Senses, which provides guidelines for articles on those topics, and seeks stronger cross-linkage and cross-cultural treatment of all of these topics.

This is a central article in that project. It seems that not all the other articles on the senses really fully explain their relation to other senses well - and often assume the biomedical model too much. Pain for instance had no links to pain control and mentioned no way to control pain other than drugs, saying that "drugs control pain". This is not good. We are not pushers. We have a lot of this kind of stuff to clean up.

how about dissecting the page into overview and links to the respective senses? i think there's already too much detail info in here...

ESP?

Should ESP be listed here?

If it's "extra-sensory", then it's by definition not one of the senses, isn't it? Even if it really existed, it would be listed somewhere else. I'd list it as a belief of its own, just like religions, and maybe with a link from pseudoscience. --Lee Daniel Crocker

I specifically wrote "physiological" senses in the opening sentence, to prevent people from trying to include ESP. It doesn't belong here, as this article defines a sense as having a receptor neuron, and a corresponding interpretive region in the frontal cortex. I think it can be safely said that ESP has neither. - MMGB

It should be mentioned somehow under perception. --LMS

That's a reasonable link, too, depending on how you treat perception.

I think that ESP should be removed. It is not a sense. --Comaze 23:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

ESP needs a better definition perhaps. Rigorous testing has already yielded results showing that ESP, as most think of it, hasn't any fact to support it. Telepathy, and telekinesis are already manifested through the body in a true material way. In telepathy, we communicate through sound, more complex vocal transmissions, displays of lights, tactile signals, gestures and body language, and more formally sign language. In telekinesis, we use our physical beings to act upon outside objects, even using other objects to act upon those objects for us, i.e. tools. With man's capacity for invention, we have only enhanced these abilities beyond their limitations. We call that technology. So really, there is no evolutionary need for anything supernatural to occur on our behalf. It's the same for all creatures. For years, I've heard it proposed that birds and ants share a hive mind. That their behavior demonstrates evidence for telepathy. The term is bandied about as if there is something magical about it. When you actually test this zany hypothesis, you discover that they are merely using other methods of communication than those readily recognized by humans. So their telepathy is nothing more than a language of chemicals and barely perceptible changes in movement.

What most regard as ESP can be explained fully by rational, physical means.

Here's the kicker.

Can ESP be redefined as any postcognitive ability that utilizes some or all the senses available, in a combined, deductive synthesis?

In other words, is ESP another name for the Gestalt process of the human mind, where the senses are combined in one supreme stream of data, and patterns and observations are deduced to form a bigger picture?

For example, John experienced a premonition. He believe he saw a greater pattern that led to a future event. He told his wife about it, and promptly forgot about it. A year later, this event came to pass, differing only slightly from John's prediction. His wife was spooked and started telling her mother that John could see the future. The next thing you know he's on Montel, explaining how he was channeling the messages from his ancestors, in order to change the future.

Any skeptical man or woman will dismiss this whole thing as fancy because of the leap of faith, and ridiculous claim John made. But if you dig deeper, you discover that what he could have been experiencing was nothing more than pattern recognition which yielded a conscious thought of a possible future outcome.

But is there any basis for claiming that this postcognitive synthesis is in itself a supersense, or even a sixth sense? If so, how do we test this? --J. Christopher Ramsey 19:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Extrasensory perception has its own article. It doesn't need to be described here. There's an obvious cultural association though, and to ignore it or censor it wouldn't be encyclopedic. I think a link is appropriate. I'll put it in after I type this. -- Another Stickler (talk) 10:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Colour and Energy of Light

different [visual] receptors are responsible for the perception of colour (the frequency of light) and brightness (the energy of light)

Can anyone support this claim? What I know about visual perception suggests that photoceptors do not divide nicely into those concerned with frequency and those concerned with color. If someone wrote this in light of the distinction between rods and cones they are sadly mistaken; cones as well as rods process "brightness". If no one can explain this, the passage is getting removed. --Ryguasu

Read vision and visual perception - it's a lot more complex than just that.

Sense of being stared at

Should we mention the potential of a "sense of being stared at"? Research backing it is laid out at morphogenetic field. It's not widely accepted and we should say that, but it's rare that anyone actually proposes a new sense, so I am inclined to think it should be here.

A morphogenetic field has yet to survive any rigorous scientific testing, so I don't think it can be seriously entertained here. When a medical textbook accepts the existence of the morphogenetic field, then so should this article. The article is really a generalist overview of a physiology topic. Manning 13:36, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I think this page should include a category for senses that have not yet withstood rigorous scientific testing. Remember, the policy is NPOV, not SPOV (scientific point of view). The "sense of being stared at", the ability to see auras, tele-empathy and medical empathy, as well as the "sense of direction" (possibly a poorly developed form of electroception -- after all, electroception had to come from somewhere and it's a bit naive to think that, while the platypus has a highly developed sense of electroception, as do many birds -- invluding non-migratory ones (just try holding a magnet up to a cockateil or a parakeet and watch its reaction!), and many fish as well, that no other animal in the world has even a rudimentary version of this sense. Didn't a previous version of this page once state that humans had the same minerals in the brain that exist in specialized organs of animals with a dictinctly developed sense of electroception, and that this is why we humans can sometimes "feel" where north is (or soutn, in the southen hemisphere)? Just because humans have no specialized organ for this particular sense, doesn't mean they don't have some vague, undeveloped, and barely perceptible sensation of electromangetism aside from that gathered from other senses (like hairs standing up on end or ears ringing in the presence of electrical fields). Evolutionarily speaking, some primitive precursor to a full-fledged sense must exist before a sensory organ dedicated to it evolves, and given the sheer variety of animals with electroceptic sensory organs, it seems reasonable to assume that many other animals have such an as-yet-undeveloped precursor to this sense. This could also be related to the ability to sense auras (interpreting stimuli for which we have no dedicated sensory organ in the form of a sense we actually can process consciously, like vision).

In short, there is no reason not to include a section on this page for hypothesized yet scientifically unproven senses. Like I said: It's NPOV that counts here, not SPOV. If substantial numbers of people believe in certain senses, it is not our place to conclude, due to lack of scientific evidence, that they are not actual senses because they do not exist and exclude them from this page. Rather, it is merely our place to point out that scientific proof for these presumed and hypothesized senses has not yet come forth. --Corvun 13:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be inappropriate to include such a section. The scientific point of view is objective and skeptical, and hence is what must be followed for NPOV. Such a section is not justified by your claim that there is a 'substantial number' of people who believe it. Substantial numbers of people can be wrong anyway. Your own conjecture is also no reason to include this sort of thing. 124.171.189.135 (talk) 13:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Related Wiki

A larger wiki forum on this area may be found on sense-think-act.org which may be of interest to contributors to this area... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Szczels (talk • contribs) 12:52, 6 March 2005

Polarization of light

What about perception of polarization of light, by fish? Is there a one-word name for that?

Yes, I hear bees and some other insects use light polarization for navigation. Supposedly even humans can sense it directly Haidinger's brush. Since it's sensed by the eyes, perhaps it should be classified as one kind of enhanced vision?

Taste

The book "Fast Food Nation" lists a sixth gustatory flavour called "astringent". Presumably, this is the flavour of mouthwash and some medicines.

I haven't found scientific info about this, only some "holistic" stuff. r3m0t 17:50, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In Dijkgraaf and Zandee (Comparative animal physiology), it was mentioned that every taste can be produced with combinations of the 4 basic tastes. Soapy and alkaline tastes however cannot be perceived that way, there is no reference however and the book is in dutch. I have also read about metallic taste (what happens with some types of steel if you put it against your tongue. The perception of salts other than Sodium salt is a mixture of the four basic tastes.

Some research produced these references:

The alkaline taste: a comparison of absolute thresholds for sodium hydroxide on the tip and mid-dorsal surfaces of the tongue

…, WJ Brogden - The American Journal of Psychology, 1948 - JSTOR

(I could not access this article, just the second one that refers to its conclusion)

Physiology of Smell and Taste

Annual Review of Physiology

Vol. 12: 469-484 (Volume publication date March 1950)

H D Patton

(This article states that the alkaline taste is partly a true taste sense because of slightly different tresholds at different regios of the tongue and for a great part a common chemical and pain sense.

The quantitative measurement of taste function

F HARBERT, S WAGNER… - Archives of Otolaryngology- …, 1962 - Am Med Assoc

(alkaline taste can be provoked when a galvanic current is over the tongue when the tongue is the anode and acid taste with tongue as cathode)

The last reference seems to be explanatory the metallic taste, the common chemical taste and also suggest that the taste for acid and alkaline are of the same nature.Viridiflavus (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Infrared light

I added something about pit vipers and boas and their ability to sense infrared light. Is their a name for this sense? Also, are their any other animals with this sense? CyborgTosser 17:46, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Isn't this just a sense of sight, developed for a slightly longer wavelength than humans? --Mintie 23:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Physiologically this is still the sense of vision, except that the receptors are tuned to a wider frequency (as Mintie said). It's no difference to the fact that dogs (and other animals) can hear above the 20kHz audio frequency range.Manning 06:06, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

But the article states that This sense is in addition to and distinct from normal vision. Which is what I wanted to ask a question about here. But it's already been said. So I'll change that (and move it up). DirkvdM 08:46, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The pit viper article specifically mentions special thermoreceptor sensors, which are *not* the eyes. That makes it a different "sense", right? --DavidCary 21:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, isn't there a lobster-like animal that has very complicated eyes, sensing not just many more frequencies but also some other aspects? I vaguely remember something like that, but lobster doesn't say anything about it. Does anyone know which animal this is? DirkvdM 08:46, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

You're thinking of mantis shrimp. 17:12, 19 March 2008 (PST)

My understanding is that a photon has only two "aspects" -- frequency and #Polarization_of_light. --DavidCary 21:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, and certain compound eyes have the ability to detect the latter, as discussed in that article. On the matter of infrared, where there exists a separate sense organ, and a different part of the brain is involved, this will indeed be regarded as a unique sense. What is not required here is for physicists (of which I am one) to wade in and smugly declare that this is just light, therefore the same sense as vision. To do so misses the definition of a sense totally. Therefore, and because it interrupts the flow and looks like somebody trying to squeeze their tuppenceworth into the article, I've removed the sentence "Infrared senses are, however, just sight in a different light frequency range." --Che Gannarelli (talk) 12:32, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Time

"Sense of time passing" is sometimes named as a sense, often in conjunction with (though not related to) balance.

Pain

As a common pleb, I have always thought that pain was an extreme manifestation of the other senses, and not as a separate sense. Imagine pressing a spike lightly against your skin. It may not be pain but you can feel it. Press harder, and it becomes pain. There's a grey area of discomfort between the feelings of touch and pain. Similarly with heat and cold, sound, light, balance (motion sickness etc.), even smell and taste (unpleasant tastes/smells such as strong chemicals). The article on Nociception, if I understand it correctly, states that there are specialised pain receptors (separate from those for touch and temperature), which seems to refute my idea. Either way I think it's a common enough (mis)conception that it could do with refutation/support in the main article. --Mintie 23:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

The pain that comes with pressure is what caused people to think that pain was simply an overload of the touch senses. You can see that it isn't by considering the pain of heartburn, muscle stress, and a rash. Nociception is neurological quite distinct from tactition. A deeper explanation of how pain and touch differ would be useful - I'll put it on my to-do list. Manning 13:38, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

For other senses, the article indicates the stimuli that are sensed, e.g. light, pressure, chemistry, temperature, acceleration. What stimuli are sensed by pain sensors? Is pain cognitive/post-sensory or are there unique pain sensors that "fire" only under limit condition (as protection against possible damage)?Cwfv (talk) 00:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Everything about that is in nociception .Viridiflavus (talk) 06:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems very strange that pain is regarded as a sense, but not pleasure (or something?) -- Or that the need to defecate is mentioned, but not any sexual sensation. Is that sensation really less distinct from the other senses? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.27.182 (talk) 00:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Bacteria

Guess what???

Ice cubes in fast food restuarants and hotels and airplanes have more bacteria than their pottys!!!!!! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

"Magnetotactic bacteria build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to determine their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field." What possible reason would a bacteria have for doing this? Is it just a quirk of evolution? --Mintie 23:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

It would probably be done to ensure some sort of vague geometric pattern in the growth of the bateria... sorta like the way atoms line up in a crystal--Bill 23:32, 21 Jan 2006 (UNSW)

Other senses

As a half-serious suggestion, what about more ethereal senses such as the sense of morality or outrage? See http://angryflower.com/sensib.gif for a laugh. Any other thoughts? --Mintie 23:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

And what about the so called "sixth sense" Charlie 08:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

So-called "common sense"

Nausea is also distinct

While nausea can by accompanied by dizzyness (probably part of Equilibrioception) and pain it's quite distinct. Having to go pee is another, but that doesn't sound too scientific.

 -rm

The sensation of a full bladder (having to pee) is a real sensation but is not necessarily a correct indication that the bladder is full. After a prostrate operation my doctor gave me medicine that was to "retrain my bladder" into knowing when it was really full versus when it thought it was full. I don't know anything about the mechanism behind that feeling or how the medicine works.

Perhaps along similar lines, there is a sensation one feels when having to defecate. If that feeling is ignored for a long enough time, it will be replaced by pain (cramps).

  - btm

The sensation of the relative fullness of the bladder, bowels, or stomach is a real human sensation, corresponding to a real phenomenon: they should be included in the list. Sense is (somewhat) independent of cognition; the conclusions you draw based on what you appear to see or hear or feel may be different than the sensations themselves.

Balance

Why not simply call balance the sense of acceleration? Gravity is accelaration. (see relativity.) All forms of accelartion is sensed with your sense of balance, and nothing more or less.

Fair comment, but you'll need to discuss it with the physiologists, not us. We just report what the term is, we don't decide. While you are at it, aske them why on earth we needed a word like "gustation". Manning 06:04, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

...Balance a great characteristic. Senses, nerves and capability. The (mind) how do we decide, is it corruption, manipulation or the understanding of what has been modified. The adjustment to our or to the senses do have something to do with understanding. We understand a property by its justification and satisfaction of what is. Is may represent understanding. My first adjustment of knowledge had been pertained to the term [-Thank You-] Here is what I adjusted to. T-o H-elp A-nother N-eeded K-eeper Y-ou O-ughto U-nderstand. The sense of the mind pertaining to feelings and unity may have been extended based on the balance of understanding a trueness by an objective idea. Sense of Control, perhaps.David George DeLancey (talk) 11:45, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Senses and Perception

If senses include such things as the statolith and magnetotactic bacteria, shouldn't it also include phototaxis and chemotaxis? in other organisms. Certainly this can be divided by phylogeny, but if it is a generalized article on the senses, shouldn't we include sections for the detection of, for example, red to far red light ratio in plants? Phototaxis in birds (the so-called third eye, because of light penetration of the skull? Just out of curiousity. Thank you.L Hamm 03:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"Types of Senses"

Hi. I've taken the (bold?) step of deleting this section. I looked carefully at it and couldn't see any information that wasn't included in the "List of Human senses" section, which is generally much better, and properly wikified.82.13.223.11 16:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Can plants sense too?

The answer is of course "yes", but unfortunately this topic is missing. I have inserted a line in the non human senses. I will add more in due course of time. 08:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Questionable sentence

The following is highly debatable:

"No life form is without any kind of sensing faculty."

What of amoebas, bacteria, or (also arguable since they're often not thought to be alive) viruses? The sentence also advocates by implication the idea that sense is unrelated to cognition, which it shouldn't do, since "there is no firm agreement amongst neurologists as to exactly how many senses there are, because of differing definitions of a sense." The article immediately goes on to make the assumption that a sense requires a brain by including brains in the definition in the next paragraph. --Mr. Billion 17:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm no expert. But I see no contradiction between saying that neurologists have various definitions of a "sense", while also saying that neurologists all agree that a "sense" does not include various higher-order perceptions such as "wetness" or "distance perception" or "" that are derived from combining several sources of information. --DavidCary 21:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

taction vs tactition

i don't really know a lot about html editing, but I changed "tactition" to say "taction" since it represents the idea presented and tactition is not a word.

other above-average abilities

There are several articles about above-average human abilities. Should we list them in the sense article? --DavidCary 21:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• supertaster
• tetrachromat
• "some individuals are able to hear up to 22 kHz" -- hearing (is this the same as Golden ear ?)

and perhaps

• polydactyly
• Haidinger's brush

Sense of self

What about human being's inherit sense of their own thoughts? I cant believe ive never seen this discussed in its wholeness, but i believe that its one of the very few things that separates human from the other creatures - self awareness.. which is really just having one's own thoughts re-run through a sensory module (of the brain). this way, conscious is the resulting loop of thought>sense of thought>thought resulting from sense>sense of this thought>etc; and subconscious are the multitude of many thoughts that we are not 'consciously aware' of (not sensed). -Bill

A worthy topic, but unrelated to this article. This article is about physiological sensory perception - ie, how sensory nerves (external to the brain/CNS) relay information to the brain for processing. Being self-aware ("cogito ergo sum")is a process of abstract thought (which, by definition, means brain functions independent of external stimuli). Manning 01:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Echolocation?

Is echolocation really a bona-fide sense? I mean I can tell the direction of where sound comes from but isnt that a just post-sensory function of hearing? As far as I know echo location is just a more advanced post-processing of hearing. 129.42.208.182 21:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It certainly isn't a sense in humans, but the ability is observed in many animals such as bats. As noted in the article, the question of whether or not echolocation is a unique sense or simply a post-sensory cognitive interpretation of hearing remains to be resolved. Manning 01:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

This article seems to prove that Humans are capable of performing echolocation.

http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1212568,00.html -CalvinR

Rare Disease

There is a disease, I forget the name, that exists where people 'hear' colors. A while back, the news was showing an autistic girl playing the piano and announcing the colors she was seeing. What is this disease called? It should be mentioned, at least in the links. 207.179.172.220 16:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's an abnormal binding of sensory input. I'm not sure its a disease, per se. It happens when a particular input (say yellow) is associated (incorrectly) with another (say 5). In this example, when this person looks at a bowl of apples, nothing particularly interesting happens. But as soon as they are aware that there are 5 apples, there is a yellowness associated with that input. They know the apples are red (or green, or i suppse yellow, but we'll say they're red) and they would say "red" if you asked them what colour they are. But there is also a "yellowness" associated with them. The reverse may or may not be true. I forget what this phenomenon is called. Mike.lifeguard 03:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I beleive this phenomenon is called synesthesia, there is a seperate wp article for it. It isn't an extra sense, it's more that one sense triggers a feeing in another. I believe this phenomenon occurs in many cases of autism.

POV/Contradiction edit

I've removed the bolded sentence from the article:

There is no firm agreement among neurologists as to exactly how many senses there are, because of differing definitions of a sense. In general, one can say that a "sense" is a faculty by which outside stimuli are perceived. School children are routinely taught that there are five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste; a classification first devised by Aristotle). There is another highly debatable 6th sense but that is pretty much voodoo and conjecture.

It is generally agreed that there are at least nine different senses in humans, and a minimum of two more observed in other organisms.

Calling it 'voodoo and conjecture' is definitely POV, and leads to confusion with the sentence that follows -- after all, if there are nine senses, then there must be a sixth! -- Heath 69.174.67.197 00:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I would not call the sixth sense as voodoo or myth, as it is common, first of all everyone has a sixth sense organ without even knowing it exists, which is undergoing scientific research such as how one can sense light and dark in a separate room etc which is governed by the organ within the center of the brain, which is dubbed the perennial eye "Third eye" etc.. Here are 3 links to get you interested if you are doing research in having more ground evidence of the sixth sense. Third eye Pineal gland Parietal eye Then also a book of interest to read is intelligent design by Rael, and especial Sensual Meditation (activating sixth sense), which could be a basis or foundation to start research on at Raelian Movement website to get the pdf documents, for me it works, but that is debatable but it is in correlation with: Indriya, Ayatana which has been derived from ancient culture. If one can understand and think, how many of the inventions and ideas are used today invented by the far eastern peoples, for example, which is quite blatant and destructive is gun powder, which was used in battles in the far east before the invention reached Europe(which also is used for artistic purposes of fireworks), and then paper as well in China, so the subject of the sixth sense has to be researched which also could be in correlation with Alpha and Beta waves of the brain, such as the new star wars toy that had been created. But how hair strands working as "aerials" of telepathy is another thing that needs to be researched.. It would be incorrect to completely dismiss the sixth sense organ if it is explained in history and culture, but not not 100% proven, sorry if i rambled, Lotsa Love --Zanainternational (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Number of senses

If we have 5, or 9, or 23 senses depending on who you ask and their definition, why are not all 23 listed? I think it might be useful to have the senses organized in models. ie. the traditional 5 sense model, and list them. then the updated 9-sense model, and list them. then the fancy 23 sense model and list them. After that, describe them all. Anyone up for it?? ITs certainly not helpful to have a statement that there may be as many as 23 senses in humans, but only see 9 of them listed. Mike.lifeguard 03:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this statement appears on Olfaction. Mike.lifeguard 03:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no formal "23 sense" model as such, and no two neurologists would fully agree on the model. The increase in number occurs when you treat individual receptors as distinct senses. For example, there are at least four distinct touch receptors, each with their own neural pathway and each attuned to slightly different stimuli. So the decision to call this a single sense or individual senses becomes somewhat arbitrary. Manning 15:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Sense of Direction

Should there be a mention that some humans have a slight sense of direction (most likely based on Earth's magnetic field)? I know this exists from personal experience. Even as a child, all my dreams and memories had a direction to them. I actually found it rather shocking when I got older and heard people say they do not have that perception. Yet, I have encountered several other people who DO have a sense of direction in this manner. Sometimes this sense is stronger than other times, but I can generally sense compass direction to within about 30-45 degrees. It's tough to describe the sensation to those who do not feel it, but it can be best described as north feeling like an "up-hill" trip even on level ground. South is "downhill", and east and west are both "level". Geekrecon 18:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Update: I did notice that there is a tiny mentioning of Sense of Direction under "Magnetoception". Could something about this be moved under the human section of the article? Geekrecon 18:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Animals, earthquakes, tsunamis

What about animals that react to earthquakes, tsunamis and the like? --Joffeloff 01:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought that was true until recently. Turns out its a myth. Not at all surprising though. 124.171.189.135 (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Came here to remember the five senses, and you missed one!

Ah, somehow smell isn't listed under the classic five. Thanks. Screendoorslams 09:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Simulated Reality

(This is all theoretical) What if we were eventually able to reproduce the senses sent to the brain? If they are electronic signals sent through the nervous system, then they (might ?) be able to be copied or faked by attaching all of a person's connections to the brain to a machine that could reproduce them. Would this allow this subject to experience whatever we programmed them to experience? It occured to me that if this could happen, you could enter worlds of fantasy. Magic10801 00:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)Magic10801

New Theories

This may be too early to include here, but I came across this local group recently: Institute of Advanced Science and Engineering and their information web site at www.senses.info.

--Myscience 01:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Stiener?

Is Stiener really relevant here - it seems that we have so much more to do before mentioning Stiener.

--Myscience 20:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Interoception

Why does interoception redirect to here? That seems a bit manky what?

removed a section - Internal senses

I removed the following as I could not find any references to justify them. (And swallowing is not a sense, it is an action.) The epigastric sense may merit reentry, I am not currently certain of the neurological basis of nausea and/or anxiety.

Heading of >> Other internal senses An internal sense is "any sense that is normally stimulated from within the body."

• Hunger and thirst are "varieties of sense".

• epigastric sense is a "weak, sinking or anxious feeling localized in the stomach", as in nausea.

• time sense is "the ability to appreciate time intervals, especially in sound and in music".

• vascular sense is "the sensation felt when there is a change in vascular tone, as in blushing".

• gagging is accompanied by a sensation felt when a foreign object such as food enters the windpipe.

• esophageal senses are sensations felt in the throat when swallowing, vomiting, or during acid reflux.

• excretory senses are sensations felt in the urinary bladder or rectum.

Manning 15:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Several "internal senses" have dictionary definitions and the expression "internal sense" also has a dictionary definition. I reverted these and attached footnotes. I suggest you find references for the other internal senses that we all experience. Greensburger 03:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted your reinstatement but will give reasons. This article at the moment chiefly deals with the physiological concept of a "sense" - meaning a defined set of receptors linked to a region of the brain. The dictionary you are referencing is using a more generalised interpretation of the term "sense", and not a neurophysiological one. My issue is not with the validity of the information, but that the way it is presented implies that these "internal senses" are neurophysiological definitions when they are not.

All of these examples are either alternative manifestations of senses already defined (eg. the 'esophageal' and "excretory" senses involve tactile/nociceptive receptors), are examples of a post-sensory cognitive awareness (eg the "time sense" - we do not have a "time receptor" any more than we have a "direction" receptor - our awareness of this is purely cognitive) or are endocrinal responses.

If we are to retain this section then it needs to be completely restructured and presented in the context of being non-neurological, and this might not be a bad thing.

A better solution is to restructure the introduction to better distinguish between the formalised neurophysiological definition of a 'sense" and the more generalised usage. This has sort of been done when addressing "direction", but it probably needs to be addressed explicitly to prevent the kind of confusion that currently exists. I think this information should stay here until the article is restructured so that it can be included without being misleading. Manning (talk) 14:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I have rewritten this section to emphasize neurophysiological receptors linked to the brain. I agree there is no "time receptor" and hence "time sense" does not qualify under the narrow definition of sense. I agree that the confusion you mentioned needs to be addressed in the introduction, but that is for another edit. Greensburger (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see you rewrote the section but now it is even more nonsensical, sadly. You have rewritten the items to demonstrate that they are all forms of mechanoreception, which has already been addressed earlier in the article. If we treat these as distinct "senses" then we need to treat the subforms of nociception, vision and gustation as distinct as well, for they are similarly distinguishable as these. I have rewritten the material and re-located it under "touch". Manning (talk) 22:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Scratch that - I've reverted to your last edit. My initial attempt to rectify the article ran headlong into the fundamental structural problems here, and there is no quick solution. Believe it or not I wrote the original version of this article way back in 2001, and my bias at the time was clearly neurophysiological, reflecting my own background. However it is apparent to me that we need to broaden the scope to acknowledge the fact that this is a complex area, with differing terminology for the same elements across various scientific disciplines, and that the layperson may use the term in a completely different fashion again. I'm going back to the drawing board for now. Manning (talk) 22:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Mental Map

I know that there is some sense that is a "mental map" of your surroundings, so you can, say, reach around something and grab something else without looking. If it doesn't belong here, can someone at least tell me the name of what I'm talking about here?--Gaeamil 10:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean peripheral vision? If not, I would advice you to put your question on the reference desk. Lova Falk 16:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Senses upon death

I think there is a study about which of the senses would be the first to lose its function after death. I can't find a link though. Maybe we can add this information to the article. Leoisiah (talk) 14:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Proprioception or perhaps Kinesthesia

Why is this not mentioned?! It's a basic sense available to humans and fundamentally different than touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell, and balance! 16:56, 19 March 2008 (PST)

Spelling: recognised vs recognized

I will change recognised to recognized because all my dictionaries have the latter. What dictionary does wikipedia follow? -Tsinoyman (talk) 20:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Both are correct: you might want to see American and British English spelling differences

Also, I just did a quick scan and saw "colour", so my immediate assumption is that the article is not written primarily in American English, or that it's a hybrid, and it's not good to change the spelling if one system is already in place (I'm sure somebody can provide the right link). --Stomme (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the original article and used British spelling. Convetion dictates it remains the same.Manning (talk) 18:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

A bit messy.

I am listing my edits of some of the non-sense and lack of, or wrong information.

"The nervous system has a sensory system dedicated to each sense." to "The nervous system has a specific sensory system, or organ, dedicated to each sense."

Because it does.

"However, humans have at least eight different senses (including interoceptive senses), like: thermoception (heat, cold), nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance, gravity), proprioception & kinesthesia (joint motion and acceleration). Different senses also exist in other organisms (amongst them: electroreception, echolocation, magnetoception, pressure detection, polarized light detection)."

To:

"However, humans have at least seven, and possibly eight, different senses. They are inclusive of the above with the addition of equilibrioception (balance), thermoception (temperature differences), and in some a weak magnetoception (direction). Different senses also exist in other organisms, for example electroreception."

I removed nociception (pain), proprioception & kinesthesia (joint motion and acceleration), and pressure detection because they are sub-catagories of somatoception. I also removed polarized light detection becaused it is a sub-catagory of vision.

I removed "Buddhist and Jewish belief systems attribute the sixth sense to memory or mind." because it has nothing to do with this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GeeOh (talk • contribs) 03:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Proprioception and interoception again

I believe that senses which relate to stimuli coming from one's own body, interoception I believe it is called, should be included, as it seems to have been at some point. The reasoning behind it is that the article seems to define senses as something that "has a specific sensory system, or organ, dedicated to [it]". Proprioception, amongst others, is one that definitely has special receptors and that is processed by some kind of neurological system.

This does bring back the problem of the definition of sense, and I think the article should, as has been mentioned before, try to account for the many "definitions" or categorizations of senses. I.e.: classical, external, internal. It already does so to some extent by making the difference between human senses and non-human ones, but really doesn't do much justice to the different attempts that have been made by different parties to list all senses known. Senses, and how to categorize them, do seem to be a subject of great debate, but an encyclopedia, instead of skipping the discussion altogether, should try to mention the better known views on the subject. It doesn't seem to be the case.

I won't go into this myself as I know nothing about the subject, or anything pertaining to biology really. I do hope to spark a change for the better for this article as it's quite messy, and many links to it are broken, i.e. Interoception.

--Quantum Omega (talk) 00:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The paragraphs you refer to were deleted on March 13 2008. I reverted this vandalism and made minor improvements. The paragraphs still need work and references. Greensburger (talk) 04:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Magnetoception again

Given that we're citing studies at Magnetoception stating that there's some evidence of it in humans, I'd like to propose that the article be re-edited to take that into account. Since the information was already released once, I'm not entirely certain it's my place to readd it...Eoseth (talk)

Just a little theory on sense evolution

Senses evolved progressively one from another (for example, probably photosensitivity evolved from phonosensitivity, etc) in a sort of sense phylogenetic tree, whose presumable root was metabolism. --Faustnh (talk) 21:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments on "Sight" section

Two comments. The following fragment is IMHO poorly worded:

• [...] which is why people see interpreting the image as "sight."

Somebody who knows their stuff could try and improve on it.

Also, if a note is made that color perception may be considered a different sense, there should be a reference to color blindness next to the one on blindness. elpincha (talk) 03:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Split the document ?

IMHO, it seems 3 facets of the topic are being described here.

1. Sense organs: ears, eyes, nose, brain, skin, mouth, etc
2. Sense facilities: sound, b/w sight, colour sight, tactition, temperature, etc
3. Sense interpretation: (sight) face recognition, danger recognition, flash light recognition, etc, (sound) familar voice recognition, danger recognition, etc, (smell) relaxing smell, foul smell, etc

The "sense interpretation" section/page would link to neurological pages, to complete the picture

Misc comments:

• Perhaps, b/w sight is separate from colour sight (rods & cones)
• Consider also, feeling low-frequency sound (eg elephant's subsonic call) with body
• Also, sensitivity to strong magnetic field underneath electricity pylons (some people affected more than others)
• Sense of time is really "sense of time duration" rather than an absolute time

SombreGreenbul (talk) 14:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

opposed This is a summary article that already links to detailed articles on visual perception, taste, blindsight etc. In a summary article on Sense in general, it is quite proper to briefly describe each sense organ, what is being sensed, and neurological interpretation and effects of sensory input, all in the same article.

Greensburger (talk) 19:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"missing?

People can also detect electric (touch the electric fence and you feel it, if low voltage its not actually pain, but you feel the pulse's and frequency of pulses, same goes for the static before a big storm.) and people can also detect altitude, changes in air pressure, The feeling of dry mouth, the shortness of breath, the ear popping. this must be a sense too? right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.162.107 (talk) 14:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that if the "Definition" section were moved to the introduction (maybe with a little cleaning up), that would perfectly solve the problem. Burningtoad (talk) 03:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Somnolence/Wakefulness/Sleepiness

It seems that one's inner sense of somnolence/wakefulness/sleepiness would also be a sense. Somnolence, I suppose could be explained as a diminished prevalence of input from other senses. That last argument though assumes being tired is orthogonal to being alert. As far as I know, a sensory deprivation chamber does not make one feel tired, so it seems that a sense of somnolence isn't just a lack of input from other senses. ~ Justin Ormont (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Non-conscious Senses

There are also many internal sensors in the body that don't register to the consciousness. My understanding is that some of these travel up the vagus nerve to the brain. Here's a snippet from vagus nerve: "Besides output to the various organs in the body the vagus nerve conveys sensory information about the state of the body's organs to the central nervous system. 80-90% of the nerve fibers in the vagus nerve are afferent (sensory) nerves communicating the state of the viscera to the brain." There are also more distant examples, for instance sensors in the body which don't require interaction with the nervous system like the regulation of blood glucose levels which requires a feedback mechanism. All feedback mechanisms by definition need input, which is a sensor. I suppose saying what is a sense and what is not is tied circularly to how one defines a sense. ~ Justin Ormont (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem with including non-conscious senses is there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of types of sensors. There is a blood-temperature sensor in the hypothalamus (brain). There are sensors in the hypothalamus for sensing the amount of thyroxin, calcium, glucose, etc. etc. in the blood. There is a sensor for measuring the acid/alkaline (ph) of the blood. There are sensors for sensing various amino acids in the blood. Every receptor in every cell could be considered a distinct sensor if the word sensor were expanded to include non-conscious senses. Generally, each sense must have a corresponding sense organ(s) that must send a signal to a specific area of the brain, so that a conscious decision can be made about how to react to the sensed condition. By this definition, vision would be several senses: motion, brightness, color, pattern recognition, etc. To avoid conceptual overload, we simplify senses into categories of related senses. Greensburger (talk) 03:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Space

Mr. Greensburger,I remember we had some 'discussion' about the directionality in the sense of smell linked to the cold receptors on a dogs nose. As a matter of fact for the senses sight and hearing we also have a spatial component, that is not linked to light or sound perception per se, but adds to the sense a spatial representation. I think we should include that part of the senses in a more general paragraph of the article. Adding the spacial representation makes a sense more than merely the detection of a stimulus, and gives an organism an enhanced interaction with its surroundings. With hearing the sense is also intimately connected with phase and time differences, enabling stereo hearing and echolocation. Also the lateral line system is used to make a spatial image of the surroundings, mapping out the vortices present around the fish. Especially with smell the space can be thought of as a network of vortices in the air or water carrying interesting substances leading to a prey ,a mate or anything of interest to the organism. I think I need to find the relevant sources yet, because I don't know if such generalizatons are made in scientific literature, but I can't imagine that no one has approached the senses in this more general way. A more integrative approach to the senses would be meaningful I think.02:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Viridiflavus (talk • contribs)

Immaterial senses.

When I imagine some spatial figure, such as for example a box, and I find that I can make the box larger or smaller or that I can change the shape of the box and in addition I can look at the box from the outside or I can enter the box and see it from the inside and on top of that I notise that I can use all of my senses to interact with the box, I ask myself such questions as; what is the box made of? If it is made of nothing it should not exist, therefore the box in my imagination is made of 'something'. Who am I as the observer? Am I the same as I am in the material space time? I am not if I am not aware of the material world while observing the box in the immaterial world. And yet I am the same observer as I am when I observe similar box in the material space, and I use the same senses. Therefore human senses operate in the immaterial space time but they use material body to communicate with the material space time.KK (78.146.55.46 (talk) 13:01, 15 March 2011 (UTC))