Saturday, November 10, 2012

The truth about how many senses we have

The questions of "How many senses do we have?" recently was brought up in class by our professor. After the conversation was had in class I decided to go on a google search to see what I could find out about this very question. So I opened up Google and typed in "how many senses do we have".
  Site one was from a Dr. Travis Langley, Professor of Psychology at Henderson State University he does not actually define the term sense he does note that there is more then the traditional five and comes up with a list of 10 main ones: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, heat, cold, pressure, pain, motion,and balance. He then continues on to talk about the difference between sensation and perception. Site two from TLC Family How stuff Works starts off by saying "The standard list of five senses doesn't really give our bodies credit for all of the amazing things they can do. There are at least a dozen different things we can sense." The site goes on to say "In order for us to have a sense, there needs to be a sensor". They then go through and break all different parts of our body down into sensors we have and come up with up to 20 different ones. I skipped over the next couple of sites as they were just yahoo forums and another forum where the same question I had asked was also asked and I wanted more reliable information. Next Wikipedia was listed. Wikipedia actually defined sense as "Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide data for perception". It then states "Human beings have a multitude of senses" and it goes on to list Sight, hearing, taste, smell,and touch as the basic five but then notes that the "ability to detect other stimuli beyond those governed by the traditional senses exists, including temperature (thermoception), kinesthetic sense (proprioception), pain (nociception), balance (equilibrioception), acceleration (kinesthesioception)[citation needed], and various internal stimuli (e.g. the different chemoreceptors for detecting salt and carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood), only a small number of these can safely be classified as separate senses in and of themselves. What constitutes a sense is a matter of some debate, leading to difficulties in defining what exactly a sense is." Further down on the page they state that "there is no firm agreement among neurologists as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense." At this point in my search the truth about how many senses there really are was becoming clearer... There is no true answer it is based on how the word is defined to you and what you classify as a sense. I at this point see the reason why we only teach student the basic five. I don't see any harm in the basic ten that the professor of psychology stated but the list of 20 plus is that really necessary common knowledge? I feel in some ways my knowledge of what a sense really is may be more blurred then it was before this question was even brought to my attention.
I then looked up the word sense: merriam-webster.com dictionary states " the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs", "a specialized function or mechanism (as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch) by which an animal receives and responds to external or internal stimuli", "the sensory mechanisms constituting a unit distinct from other functions (as movement or thought)"   Oxford Dictionary States " a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch" Dictionary.com "any of the faculties, as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch, by which humans and animals perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body", "these faculties collectively", "their operation or function; sensation", "a feeling or perception produced through the organs of touch, taste, etc., or resulting from a particular condition of some part of the body: to have a sense of cold." common words: Faculty ("an ability, natural or acquired, for a particular kind of action"- dictionary.com) perceive, external/internal stimulus, sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. So in simple terms "its the natural/acquired ability to perceiving external/internal stimulus" so any way you do this in my opinion would be considered a sense. As to how many I will leave that up to you to decide. : )

2 Comments:

At November 12, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I agree with you that it seemed very clear when I was taught in school that there were 5 senses based on the nose, eyes, ears, mouth, and skin. Its hard to talk about temperature or kinesthetic or balance because where exactly is that located. Someone might say temperature is felt in the skin but on a hot day or a cold one, I feel the temperature deep inside.

I guess this discussion has left me with the conclusion that a sense is the means by which we bring information into ourselves. I understand a great deal more about the ocean when I am on a boat from my kinesthetic sense than nearly any other.

 
At November 15, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Blogger DiMoore said...

Hi Dawn-
If our senses bring information into ourselves and we make sense of it then it doesn't matter how many senses we have. A blind person uses other senses to make sense of the same world that a non-blind person does. The point is that we all use multiple senses to navigate and understand our world. Because we try to help our students make sense of the world we devise lessons that involve multiple ways to address a topic. It just makes sense :)
-Diane

 

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