Table of Contents
By Sachin Chorge
Article submitted on January 2008
Article accepted on February 2008
Senses are the physiological methods of perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology (or cognitive science), and philosophy of perception.Behaviour is determined, Or at least influenced at every step, by the stimuli to which the sense organs are subjected; and the function of the sense organs and their powers of discrimination are discovered largely by observations on behaviour. It is not possible therefore to separate these two objects completely.
Definition of "sense"
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).
Category | Function | Examples |
Mechanoreceptors | Detect movements, vibrations, or other mechanical disturbances | Tactile receptors, Proprioceptors, Sound receptors. |
Chemoreceptor | Detect the presence of chemical substances in the air (smell) or on substrates (taste) | Taste buds on palps, Antennal, sensilla. |
Photoreceptors | Detect the presence and quality of incident light (electromagnetic radiation) | Compound eyes, Ocelli |
PHOTORECEPTORS:
Compound eye | Simple Eye | Dermal light sense |
Ommatidia | Stemmata, Ocelli | Dermal Receptors |
