Scientists have proven that after death a person feels what is happening and realizes that he is leaving this world. Human sensations: general characteristics and role in life

In children, due to deafness and blindness from early childhood, limited in receiving information, there are delays in mental development. If they are not dealt with at an early age and not taught special techniques that compensate for these defects due to touch, their mental development will become impossible.

Sensations that arise as a reaction of the nervous system to a stimulus are provided by the activity of special nervous apparatuses - analyzers. Each consists of three parts: the peripheral section, called the receptor; afferent, or sensory, nerves that conduct excitation to the nerve centers; and the actual nerve centers - the parts of the brain in which the processing of nerve impulses takes place.

However, a person's sensations do not always give him a true idea of ​​the reality around him, there are, so to speak, "false" sensory phenomena that distort the initial irritations or arise in the absence of any irritation at all. Practitioners often do not pay attention to them, they qualify as an oddity or anomaly. And researchers interested in higher nervous activity, on the contrary, have recently begun to show increased attention to them: a thorough study of them allows you to get new ideas about the functioning of the human brain.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a professor at the University of California, San Diego and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, studies neurological disorders caused by changes in small parts of the patient's brain. He paid particular attention to "false" sensory phenomena in his 2003 Reith Lectures, which were collected in The Emerging Mind.

"All the richness of our mental life - our moods, emotions, thoughts, precious lives, religious feelings, and even what each of us considers his own "I" - all this is just the activity of small jelly-like grains in our heads, in our brain, - the professor writes. The memory of what is no longer

One of these “false” sensations is phantom limbs. A phantom is an internal image or a persistent memory of a body part, usually a limb, that a person retains for months or even years after its loss. Phantoms have been known since ancient times. During the American Civil War, this phenomenon was described in detail by the American neurologist Silas Mitchell (Silas Weir Mitchell, 1829-1914), it was he who in 1871 for the first time called them such sensations as phantom limbs.

A curious story about phantoms is given by the famous neurologist and psychologist Oliver Sacks in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat:

As a result of an accident, one sailor cut off the index finger on his right hand. For the next forty years he was tormented by the importunate phantom of that finger, as stretched out and tense as at the time of the incident itself. Whenever, bringing his hand to his face while eating or to scratch his nose, the sailor was afraid to gouge out his own eye. He knew perfectly well that it was physically impossible, but the feeling was overwhelming.

Motor and sensory Homunculus of Penfield. In certain parts of the brain, there are “representations” of the muscles of the larynx, mouth, face, arm, trunk, and leg. Interestingly, the area of ​​the cortex is not at all proportional to the size of the body parts.

Dr. Ramachandran was working with a patient who had his arm amputated above the elbow. When the scientist touched his left cheek, the patient assured him that he felt touches to his amputated hand - first to the thumb, then to the little finger. To understand why this happened, one should recall some features of our brain. Penfield's homunculus

The cerebral cortex is a highly differentiated apparatus, the structure of its various regions is different. And the neurons that make up a particular department often turn out to be so specific that they only respond to certain stimuli.

At the end of the 19th century, physiologists found a zone in the cerebral cortex of dogs and cats, with electrical stimulation of which an involuntary contraction of the muscles of the opposite side of the body was observed. It was even possible to determine exactly which parts of the brain are associated with a particular muscle group. Later, this motor area of ​​the brain was described in humans. It is located in front of the central (Roland) furrow.

Canadian neurologist Wilder Graves Penfield (1891-1976) drew a funny little man in this place - a homunculus with a huge tongue and lips, thumbs and small arms, legs and torso. There is also a homunculus behind the central sulcus, only it is not motor, but sensory. Areas of this area of ​​the cerebral cortex are associated with skin sensitivity of various parts of the body. Later, another complete motor "representation" of the body of a smaller size was found, responsible for maintaining the posture and some other complex slow movements.

Tactile signals from the skin surface of the left side of the human body are projected in the right hemisphere of the brain, on a vertical section of the cortical tissue, which is called the postcentral gyrus (gyrus postcentralis). And the projection of the face on the map of the surface of the brain is immediately after the projection of the hand. Apparently, after the operation on Ramachandran's patient, that part of the cerebral cortex that belongs to the amputated hand, having ceased to receive signals, began to experience a hunger for sensory information. And the sensory data coming from the skin of the face began to fill the adjoining vacant territory. And now the touch to the face was felt by the patient as a touch to the lost hand. Magnetoencephalography confirmed this hypothesis of the scientist about the transformation of the brain map - indeed, touching the patient's face activated not only the face area in the brain, but also the arm area in accordance with the Penfield map. In a normal situation, touching the face activates only the facial cortex.

Later, Ramachandran and his colleagues, while studying the problem of phantom limbs, encountered two patients who had undergone leg amputations. Both received phantom limb sensations from their genitals. Scientists suggest that some minor "crossover" connections exist even in the norm. Perhaps this may explain why the legs are often considered an erogenous zone and are perceived by some as a fetish.

These studies led to the very important assumption that the adult brain has tremendous malleability and "plasticity." Perhaps the assertion that connections in the brain are made at the embryonic stage or in infancy and cannot be changed in adulthood is not true. Scientists do not yet have a clear understanding of how exactly to use the amazing "plasticity" of the adult brain, but some attempts are being made.

So, some patients of Dr. Ramachandran complained that their phantom hands felt "numb", "paralysed". Oliver Sacks also wrote about this in his book. Often in such patients, even before the amputation, the arm was in a cast or was paralyzed, that is, the patient after amputation ended up with a paralyzed phantom arm, his brain "remembered" this state. Then scientists tried to outsmart the brain, the patient had to receive visual feedback that the phantom obeys the commands of the brain. A mirror was placed on the side of the patient, so that when he looked at it, he saw the reflection of his healthy limb, that is, he saw two working hands. Imagine the amazement of the participants and organizers of the experiment when the patient not only saw the phantom hand, but also felt its movements. This experience was repeated many times, the visual feedback really “revived” the phantoms and relieved the unpleasant sensations of paralysis, the human brain received new information - everything, they say, is in order, the hand moves - and the feeling of stiffness disappeared. Mixed feelings, or Luria and his Sh .

In Alfred Bester's (1913–1987) novel Tiger! Tiger!" the unusual state of the hero is described:

The color was pain, heat, chill, pressure, a sense of unbearable heights and breathtaking depths, colossal accelerations and deadly contractions... The smell was a touch. The red-hot stone smelled like velvet caressing the cheek. Smoke and ash rubbed his skin like a tart, rough velveteen... Foyle was not blind, he was not deaf, he did not faint.

He felt the world. But the sensations appeared filtered through the nervous system, distorted, confused and short-circuited. Foyle was in the grip of synesthesia, that rare state in which the senses receive information from the objective world and transmit it to the brain, but there all sensations are confused and mixed with each other.

Synesthesia is not at all Bester's invention, as one might assume. This is a sensory phenomenon in which, under the influence of irritation of one analyzer, sensations arise that are characteristic of other analyzers, in other words, this is a mixture of feelings.

The famous neurophysiologist Alexander Romanovich Luria (1902–1977) worked for several years with a certain Sh., who had a phenomenal memory. In his work "A Little Book of Great Memory" he described this unique case in detail. In the course of conversations with him, Luria established that Sh. had an exceptional degree of synesthesia. This person perceived all voices as colored, sounds evoked in Sh. visual sensations of various shades (from bright yellow to purple), colors, on the contrary, were felt by him as “voiced” or “deaf”.

“What a yellow and crumbly voice you have,” he once said to L.S. Vygotsky. “But there are people who speak somehow in a polyphonic voice, who give off a whole composition, a bouquet,” he said later, “the late S.M. had such a voice. Eisenstein, as if some kind of flame with veins was approaching me. “For me, 2, 4, 6, 5 are not just numbers. They have a shape. 1 is a sharp number, regardless of its graphic representation, it is something complete, solid ... 5 is complete completeness in the form of a cone, a tower, fundamental, 6 is the first after "5", whitish. 8 - innocent, bluish-milky, similar to lime.

Luria studied this unique case for years and came to the conclusion that the significance of these synesthesias for the process of memorization was that the synesthesia components created, as it were, the background of each memorization, carrying additional "redundant" information and ensuring the accuracy of memorization.

A curious type of synesthesia has recently been encountered by neurophysiologists from the California Institute of Technology (California Institute of Technology). They discovered a new similar connection: people hear a buzz-like sound when watching a short cutscene. Neuroscientist Melissa Saenz was giving a tour of her lab for a group of senior students. In front of a monitor that was designed specifically to "turn on" a certain center of the visual cortex, one of the students suddenly asked: "Does anyone hear a strange sound?" The young man heard something like a whistle, although the picture was not accompanied by any sound effects. Saenz did not find a single description of this type of synesthesia in the literature, but was even more surprised when, after interviewing students at the institute by e-mail, she found three more of the same students.

A Swiss musician intrigued the neuropsychologists of the University of Zurich with her unique abilities: when she hears music, she feels different tastes. And what is interesting, she feels different tastes depending on the intervals between notes. The consonance can be bittersweet, salty, sour or creamy for her. "She's not imagining these tastes, she's actually experiencing them," says study co-author Michaela Esslen. The girl also has a more common form of synesthesia - she sees colors when she hears notes. For example, the note F causes her to see purple, while C makes her see red. Scientists believe that extraordinary synesthesia probably contributed to the girl's musical career. Short circuit

Synesthesia was first described by Francis Galton (1822-1911) back in the 19th century, but it was not given much attention in neurology and psychology, and for a long time it remained just a curiosity. In order to prove that this is indeed a sensory phenomenon, and not at all a figment of the imagination of a person who wants to attract attention, Ramachandran and his colleagues developed a test. Black twos and randomly placed fives appeared on the computer screen. It is very difficult for non-synesthetics to isolate the outlines that form twos. The synesthetist, on the other hand, can easily see that the numbers form a triangle, because he sees these numbers in color. Using tests like these, Ramachandran and his colleagues found that synesthesia is much more common than previously thought - the phenomenon occurs in about one in two hundred people.

Ramachandran and his student Edward Hubbard studied a structure in the temporal lobe called the fusiform gyrus (g. fusiformis, BNA). This gyrus contains a color area V4 (Visual area V4) that processes color information. Encephalographic studies have shown that the area of ​​numbers in the brain, representing visible numbers, is located directly behind it, practically touching the color area. Recall that the most common type of synesthesia is precisely “colored numbers”. Areas of numbers and color are in close proximity to each other, in the same brain structure. Scientists have suggested that synesthetics have intersections of areas, “cross-activation”, associated with some kind of genetic changes in the brain. That genes are involved is evidenced by the fact that synesthesia is inherited.

The most common type of synesthesia is colored numbers. Synesthetists and non-synesthetics see the same picture differently. Illustration: Edward Hubbard et al.

Further research proved that there are also such synesthetics who see the days of the week or months in color. Monday may appear red to them, December may appear yellow. Apparently, in such people, the intersection of areas of the brain also occurs, but only in other parts of it.

Interestingly, synesthesia is much more common in creative people - artists, writers, poets. All of them are united by the ability to think metaphorically, the ability to see connections between dissimilar things. Ramachandran hypothesizes that in people who are prone to metaphorical thinking, the gene that causes "cross-activation" has a high prevalence, is not localized in only two areas of the brain, but creates "hyperconnectivity".

Phantom limbs and synesthesia are just two examples of sensory phenomena that have allowed scientists to advance our understanding of how the human brain works and functions. But there are a lot of such neurological syndromes - this is “blindsight”, when a person who is blind as a result of brain damage distinguishes between objects that he does not see, and Cotard's syndrome, in which some patients feel dead due to the fact that emotional centers turn out to be disconnected from all sensations, and the "ignoring" syndrome, and various types of dysesthesia, and many others. The study of such deviations helps to penetrate the secrets of the human brain and deal with the mysteries of our consciousness.

Which are manifested in the reflection of a separate property of objects. This includes various phenomena of the surrounding world and the internal states of the human body during the direct impact of material stimuli on receptors. Types of sensations will help determine the most common human stimuli.

The role of sensations in life

The role of sensations in human life can hardly be overestimated, because they are a unique source of all knowledge about the world. People feel the surrounding reality with the help of the senses, because they are the only channels through which the outside world penetrates the human consciousness.

Various types of sensations are capable of reflecting certain properties of the environment to one degree or another. This includes sounds, lighting, taste and many other factors, thanks to which a person has the opportunity to navigate in the world around him.

The physiological basis of sensations is the nervous processes that, by their nature, appear during the action of a stimulus on an adequate analyzer. It, in turn, consists of receptors, nerve pathways and a central section. Here, a variety of signals are processed that come directly from the receptors to the cerebral cortex. It is safe to say that due to the receipt of impulses and stimuli into the brain, a person can quickly respond and perceive various types of sensations.

How do sensations arise?

Human sensations arise only when a certain stimulus appears. It is worth noting that the provision of a certain effect on the receptor can lead to the appearance of an irritant. It transforms all processes into nervous excitation, which is transmitted to the central parts of the analyzer.

At this moment, a person can feel the taste, light, and many other factors. In this case, there should be a response of the body to a particular stimulus. It is transmitted from the brain to the sense organs by means of the centrifugal nerve. A person can move his own gaze and perform many other actions every second, perceiving irritable signals.

Basic classification of sensations

The main role of sensations in human life is to timely bring all the necessary information to the central nervous system. It is possible to single out the most common classification in which types of sensations are presented.

Feelings:

Exteroceptive: a) contact - temperature, tactile and taste; b) distant - visual, auditory and olfactory.

Proprioceptive: a) musculo-motor.

Interoceptive - they indicate the current state of all internal organs.

Certain sensations are able to reflect the properties of objects, phenomena of the external world, reflecting the state of the body, tactile, pain, as well as sensations of various origins. It is thanks to these possibilities that a person can distinguish colors and light.

Taste sensations

It can be said with certainty that taste sensations are determined by the various properties of surrounding things. They do not have a complete or objective classification. If we take into account the main complex of sensations that arise due to taste substances, then several main irritants can be distinguished - these are sour, salty, sweet and bitter foods.

Taste sensations often include olfactory sensations, and in some cases this may include a reaction to pressure, heat, cold, or pain. If we talk about caustic, astringent, tart taste qualities, then they are due to a whole range of different sensations. Thanks to a complex complex, a person is able to feel the taste of the food consumed.

Taste buds are able to express themselves during exposure to different taste regions. It turns out that a single substance has a relatively small molecular weight.

The value of the properties of sensations

The main properties of sensations should be reduced to adaptation or adaptations of various stimuli. All this happens until the moment when the reaction of a person is equal to the minimum indicators. These include sensitization, contrast, and interaction with various stimuli.

Varieties and properties of sensations can manifest themselves to varying degrees, that is, they depend on the individual physical and biological characteristics of a particular subject. But it is worth noting that all of these properties are significant in the field of a psychological point of view. It is worth noting that sensitization and adaptation are widely used today in psychotherapy in order to develop the ability of each person to more vividly and emotionally perceive various positive elements.

Exteroceptive and tactile sensations

All human sensations can be divided into exteroceptive and tactile. It should be noted that exteroceptive sensations provide the human body with all the necessary information that comes exclusively from the environment. In turn, people get a visual image with the help of the presence of a sufficient number of cells, which are called "koloboks" and "rods".

The "rods" help to provide fairly good vision at dusk, and the "koloboks" are responsible for color vision. The ear can respond to pressure fluctuations in the atmosphere, which are perceived as sound.

The taste buds, which are located on the papillae of the tongue, are able to perceive several main tastes - sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Human tactile sensations appear during the interaction of any mechanical stimulus and receptors. They are found on the skin of the fingers, palms, lips and many other organs.

Proprioceptive sensations provide important information about the current state of the muscles. They are able to quickly respond to the degree of contraction and muscle relaxation. It should be noted that proprioceptive sensations inform a person about the state of internal organs, their chemical composition, the presence of biological, useful or harmful substances.

Features of pain

Pain is an important biologically active protective device. It arises with the help of the destructive force of irritation. It is worth noting that pain can serve as an alarm about a possible danger to the human body. The sensitivity of pain is distributed over the surface of the skin, as well as in the internal organs. The distribution process is partial and uneven.

There are areas where a small number of pain receptors are located. Experimental studies were carried out, which made it possible to consider the distribution of pain points as dynamic and mobile. Pain sensations are the result of impacts exceeding the prescribed limit of intensity and frequency of impulses. Also, it all depends on the duration of a particular stimulus.

According to Frey's theory, different pain sensitivity has an independent, peripheral and central nervous apparatus.

Touch and pressure

Presented are characterized by the features of touch and pressure. Therefore, it is possible to accurately determine their localization, which is developed as a result of experience during the participation of vision and muscle joints. It should be noted that a large number of receptors are characterized by rapid adaptation. That is why a person feels not only force pressure, but also a change in intensity.

Common sense characteristics

It should be noted that intensity is the main characteristic of human sensations, which is determined by the quantity and strength of the acting stimulus. Certain sense organs have a special sensitivity to the displayed phenomena. Sensitivity can be described as the threshold of sensation.

The duration of sensation is a temporal characteristic that can be determined by the periodic effects of the stimulus on duration and intensity. But it is worth noting that many other features must be taken into account. During the impact of the stimulus on any sense organ, a certain sensation may not occur immediately, but after some time. This phenomenon can be characterized as latent or latent sensation time.

Olfactory sensations

The sense of smell is a type of chemical sensitivity. It is worth noting that in animals, the sense of smell and taste are one, they simply differentiate after a certain period of time. A few years ago, it was generally accepted that the sense of smell does not play a particularly important role in human life. If you look from the point of view of the knowledge of the external world, then sight, hearing and touch are in the first place and are more important.

But it is worth noting that the smell has a direct impact on the various functions of the autonomic nervous system. Also, with the help of this feeling, you can create a positive or negative emotional background that can color the general well-being of a person.

Touch

During touch, each person cognizes the material world, performs the process of movement, which can also turn into conscious purposeful feeling. It is in this way that a person in practice has the opportunity to know any objects.

Sensations of touch and pressure are typical traditional psychophysiological phenomena. They are associated with the thresholds of skin sensitivity, therefore they play only a subordinate role in the human mind, as well as its objective reality. The sense organs - skin, eyes, ears - allow a person to fully experience the world.

Feeling- This is a mental cognitive process, which consists in reflecting the individual properties of objects that have a significant impact on the sense organs of the individual. Feeling in a person's life occupies a special position: it helps to perceive the world around us, to build interdisciplinary connections based on one's own impressions. Human sensations interact very closely with all the senses: sight, hearing, smell and touch are "guides" to the mysterious inner world of the individual.

Feelings are both objective and subjective. Objectivity lies in the fact that in this process there is always a reflection of an external stimulus. Subjectivity is expressed in the individual perception of a particular analyzer.

How does the analyzer engine work? Its task consists of three stages:

The stimulus affects the receptor, as a result of which the latter has a process of irritation, which is transmitted to the corresponding analyzer. For example, if you shout loudly, the individual will definitely turn towards the source of the noise, even if he is not facing him personally.

The nature of human sensations is extremely diverse. What can be attributed to sensations? First of all, these are our feelings that make up the essence of emotions: feelings of anxiety, a sense of danger, the unreality of what is happening, uncontrollable joy and sadness. The process of sensation is made up of numerous experiences, which, creating a moving string of events, form the emotional sphere of a person with its individual characteristics.

Types of sensations

• visual sensations are formed as a result of contact of light rays with the retina of the human eye. She is the receptor that is affected! The visual analyzer is designed in such a way that the light-refracting component, consisting of a lens and a vitreous transparent liquid, forms an image. Feelings may be different. So, the same stimulus has a different effect on people: some person, at the sight of a dog running up to him, will carefully turn to the side, another will calmly pass by. The strength of the impact of the stimulus on the nervous system depends on the development of the emotional sphere and individual characteristics.
• auditory sensations arise through special stimuli - auditory waves that propagate sound vibrations. The auditory sensations that the human analyzer can catch consist of three types - speech, music and noise. The first arise as a result of the perception of the speech of another person. When we listen to a monologue, we involuntarily begin to pay attention not only to the meaning of the spoken phrases, but also to the intonation, the timbre of the voice. Musical sounds can give our ears an unimaginable aesthetic pleasure. Listening to certain melodies, a person calms down or, conversely, excites his nervous system. There are cases when musical accompaniment helped a person in solving complex problems, inspired new discoveries, creative achievements. Noise almost always negatively affects the auditory analyzers of the individual and his state of mind. Constant exposure to noise adversely affects the psyche and can lead to complete or partial hearing loss.
• vibration sensations also referred to as auditory. It has been noticed that in people with disabilities (blind and deaf), the ability to perceive vibrations increases several times! For a healthy person, short-term fluctuations have a positive effect: they calm, stimulate activity or encourage specific steps. However, if the vibrations of the same type are repeated for too long, they will become a source of poor health and lead to a state of irritation.
• Olfactory sensations are called to be "on guard" of our health. Before taking food, a person feels its aroma. If the product is stale, the olfactory analyzer will immediately send a signal to the brain that this food should not be consumed. Also, by smell, you can recognize familiar places or return to different experiences. For example, inhaling the aroma of fresh strawberries heated in the sun, we remember the warm summer and the special mood that accompanied the rest at that moment.
• Taste sensations are directly related to the ability to recognize the taste of food and enjoy its diversity. There are taste buds on the tongue that are sensitive to these sensations. Moreover, different parts of the tongue react differently to the same food. So, sweet is best perceived by the tip, sour - by the edges, bitter - by the root of the tongue. To create a complete picture of taste sensations, it is necessary that the food be as diverse as possible.
• Tactile sensations carry the opportunity to get acquainted with the state of the physical body, to determine what it is: liquid, solid, sticky or rough. Most accumulations of tactile receptors are on the fingertips, lips, neck, and palms. Thanks to tactile sensations, a person, even with his eyes closed, can accurately determine which object is in front of him. For blind people, hands partially replace vision.
• Feeling the pressure perceived as a strong touch. A characteristic feature of this sensation is complete concentration in one place, as a result of which the force of the impact increases.
• Pain are formed as a result of exposure to the skin or internal organs of adverse factors. The pain can be stabbing, cutting, aching, it varies in intensity. Pain sensations are located under the skin deeper than the touch receptors.
• Temperature sensations associated with the function of heat transfer. There are receptors on the human body that react differently to heat and cold. So, for example, the back and feet are most sensitive to cold, while the chest remains warm.
• kinesthetic sensations called actually tactile. They are necessary for the formation of a sense of balance, determining the position of the body in space. A person, even with his eyes closed, can easily tell whether he is lying now, sitting or standing. The perception of movement and motor activity are important components of kinesthetic sensations. They create a feeling of confidence when moving the body in space.

Development of sensations and perception

For the development of all types of sensations, it is necessary to use a specially selected set of exercises. At the same time, it is recommended to pay attention to irritants that will occur naturally during the day and try to observe them. So, sunrise can bring no less pleasure than painting or playing a musical instrument. By learning to notice the beauty of the environment, a person “trains” his senses, activates their work, refines perception, and therefore he becomes happier. Below are exercises that can be used both in combination and separately from each other.

"Tree Watch"

This exercise can be performed for quite a long time. And the longer you begin to do it, the deeper you can master and develop your visual sensations. Its essence is as follows: not far from your home, you need to choose one tree, which you will periodically observe. Intervals in observation should have an equal interval: two to five days, at most a week. The time of year is not important, but it is desirable to be able to observe seasonal changes.

At the set hour, leave the house and head to the selected object. For ten to fifteen minutes, simply contemplate the natural beauty embodied in this particular tree. You can think of something of your own, but most importantly, do not forget to note the essential details. Considering the tree, try to answer the following questions as fully as possible: how it looks, what feelings you have, what has changed since the last visit (for example, there were more yellow leaves in the fall or fresh, green ones appeared in the spring). Exercise perfectly develops observation, provides a unique opportunity to relax the soul from daily worries and experiences. The strength of this task lies in its simplicity and accessibility for every individual.

"Who sings louder?"

This exercise is aimed at developing auditory sensations and can be used in practice by both adults and children. While on a walk, set yourself the goal of distinguishing the singing of birds, listening to the sounds uttered by wildlife. It is best to “listen” to the birds in the early morning, when there are still no extraneous sounds and there are few people on the street. You'd be surprised how much you didn't notice before. Be sure to mark your observations in a special notebook, write down important thoughts that come to mind.

"Guess - ka"

The whole family can play this game. The exercise is aimed at developing olfactory sensations. The task is not difficult to perform: you buy several products of different categories and varieties in the store. Products can be chosen to your taste, however, keep in mind that homeowners should not know what exactly your choice was. Then you invite relatives with their eyes closed at close range to identify the product. Bring them to the nose in turn cucumber, peeled banana, yogurt, milk, tomato. The task of your opponents is to guess what kind of food you brought home. Children are allowed to ask leading questions. Exercise is a great mood lifter.

"What am I feeling right now?"

The essence of this exercise is to compose for yourself as clearly as possible a spectrum of temperature and tactile sensations. To achieve the desired effect, follow simple recommendations: while taking a shower, turn on cool and warm water alternately. Notice how you feel during these periods of time. You can write down your thoughts in a special notebook, then it will be interesting to read.

Going outside in warm weather, try to mentally tune in to the perception of temperature. Notice how the skin receptors "rejoice" in the sunlight, how pleasant it is for you to walk in light clothes through which air freely penetrates. When you get home, record your observations on paper.

Thus, the role of sensations in human life is significant enough. Thanks to sensations, it becomes possible to distinguish colors and colors of one's own mood, to see the world around in all its diversity. The process of sensation gives each of us the ability to become the creator of our individuality.

Municipal state special (correctional)

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Types of feeling.

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S. Red

The value of sensation in human life.

Sensation, as such, is a rather complicated mental phenomenon, as it seems at first glance. Despite the fact that this is a fairly well-studied phenomenon, the global nature of its role in the psychology of activity and cognitive processes is underestimated by man. Sensations are widespread in ordinary human life, and in the continuous process of cognitive activity for people it is an ordinary primary form of the psychological connection of the organism with the environment.

Partial or complete absence of types of sensation (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) in a person prevents or hinders its development. Sensations are of great importance for the formation of such cognitive processes as speech, thinking, imagination, memory, attention and perception, as well as for the development of activities as a specific type of human activity aimed at creating objects of material and spiritual culture, transforming one's abilities, preserving and improving nature, and the building of society.

At the very beginning of life, in addition to physical development, first of all, speech is formed in people, which is the main means of human communication. Without it, a person would not be able to receive and transmit a large amount of information, in particular, one that carries a large semantic load or captures in itself something that cannot be perceived with the help of the senses. Written speech often acts as a way of remembering information. External speech plays mainly the role of a means of communication, and internal means of thinking. It should also be noted that speech narrows the boundaries of the chosen type of activity. The formation of speech, in turn, is problematic or even impossible without such types of sensations as sight, hearing, touch.

Man is an organic part of nature and society, he is a fairly complex organism. The origin and development of the human body is directed, first of all, to the formation of personality. People are not born as individuals, but become them in the process of development. The personality structure includes abilities, temperament, character, volitional qualities, emotions, motivation, social attitudes. The formation and development of personality is greatly influenced by cognitive processes, activities, as well as human relationships. The acquired qualities in the formation of personality are influenced by the educational process. But how can you imagine the educational process without sensations?

The vital role of sensations is to timely and quickly bring to the central nervous system, as the main control organ of activity, information about the state of the external and internal environment, the presence of biologically significant factors in it.

The life of every person is complex and multifaceted. It is revealed through a number of important processes. They can be conditionally divided into social and business activity of an individual, culture, medicine, sports, communication, interpersonal relations, scientific and research activities, entertainment and recreation.

The full flow of all of the above processes is problematic, and sometimes even impossible to imagine without the involvement of all our senses. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the role of sensations in a person's life, since sometimes this knowledge helps in organizing the prosperous existence of an individual in society, achieving success in a business environment.

1. The concept of sensations

In the process of cognition of the surrounding world, in the psychology of people, researchers single out such an important phenomenon in the life of every person as sensation.

Feeling called the simplest mental process of reflection in the cerebral cortex of individual properties of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world that affect the brain through the corresponding sensory organs. So, looking at some object, for example a chair, a person determines its color, shape, size with the help of vision, through touch he learns that it is solid, smooth, moving his hands, he is convinced of its heaviness. All these are separate qualities of a given material object, information about which gives sensations.

Sensing ability- this is the only phenomenon of the organism, through which the external world penetrates into human consciousness. With all the necessity and significance of sensation, it makes it possible to orientate in the surrounding world.

Our sense organs are products of a long evolution, therefore they are specialized to reflect certain types of energy, certain properties of objects and phenomena of reality, which are adequate stimuli for specific sense organs. Light, for example, is an adequate irritant for the eye, and sound for the ear, etc. Such differentiation in the field of sensations in man is connected with the historical development of human society. A variety of information about the state of the external and internal environment, the human body receives with the help of the senses, in the form of sensations. Sensations are considered the simplest of all mental phenomena. The ability to sense is present in all living beings with a nervous system. As for conscious sensations, they exist only in living beings that have a brain and a cerebral cortex. This, in particular, is proved by the fact that when the activity of the higher parts of the central nervous system is inhibited, the work of the cerebral cortex is temporarily turned off in a natural way or with the help of biochemical preparations, a person loses the state of consciousness and, along with it, the ability to have sensations, that is, to feel, to consciously perceive the world . This happens during sleep, during anesthesia, with painful disturbances of consciousness.

As we can see, in the process of any cognitive activity, the starting point is sensation.

2. Classification of sensations

Currently, there are about two dozen different analyzer systems that reflect the effects of the external and internal environment on receptors. Classification allows you to group them into systems and present relationships of interdependence. There are the following bases for the classification of sensations:

* by the presence or absence of direct contact with the irritant that causes sensations;

* at the location of the receptors;

* according to the time of occurrence in the course of evolution;

* according to the modality of the stimulus.

According to the presence or absence of direct contact with the stimulus, discant and contact reception are distinguished. Vision, hearing, smell belong to discant reception. These types of sensations provide orientation in the nearest environment. Taste, pain, tactile sensations - contact.

According to the location of the receptors, exteroception, interoception and proprioception are distinguished. Exteroceptive sensations arise from irritation of receptors located on the surface of the body (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.)

Interoceptive sensations occur when receptors inside the body are irritated (feeling of hunger, thirst, nausea). Proprioceptive sensations occur when the receptors located in the muscles and tendons are stimulated.

According to the modality of the stimulus, sensations are divided into visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, static, kinesthetic, temperature, pain. There are sensations that occupy an intermediate place between auditory and skin - vibrational sensations.

There are peculiar sensations that underlie the perception of obstacles, which are not realized by sighted people, but are characteristic of the blind. The blind at a distance can feel the obstacle, and the more clearly, the more massive the obstacle. It has been established that this occurs with the help of the skin of the face and, above all, the forehead. It is assumed that these are heightened thermal sensations or locational sensations, which are noted in bats.

It should be noted that sensations also greatly affect perception, attention, memory, imagination, thinking and speech; in the absence of sensations, other cognitive processes will be limited or impossible.

Perception is not presented without sensations, since it occurs through the influence of our senses on objects and phenomena of the objective world, together with the processes of sensation, perception provides sensory orientation in the surrounding world. The process of perception proceeds under the influence of almost all sensations. This, for example, can be visual perception, under the influence of vision, the main properties of the image are formed, which are formed in the process and result of perception - objectivity (perception in the form of objects separated from each other), integrity (the image is completed to some integral form), constancy (perception of objects relatively constant in shape, color and size, a number of other parameters of independently changing physical conditions of perception) and categoriality (perception is of a generalized nature).

Attention is also impossible without the sense organs, since it organizes a variety of sensations. Attention is a process of conscious or unconscious (semi-conscious) selection of one information coming through the senses and ignoring the other.

Memory is the process of reproduction, memorization, preservation and processing by a person of various information. And information, in turn, as mentioned above, comes through the senses. Let's think logically, how will we have the opportunity to remember without sensations? There will be a corresponding answer to this question.

Imagination is a special form of the human psyche, which is separate from other mental processes and at the same time occupies an intermediate position between perception, thinking and memory. This is a complex process that takes place in thinking under the influence of the information that enters the brain from the external environment through the senses and is processed through perception, as well as under the influence of those images that are in the human memory.

Thinking is a higher cognitive process. It represents the generation of new knowledge, an active form of creative reflection and transformation by man in reality. Thinking can also be understood as the acquisition of new knowledge, the creative transformation of existing ideas. The formation and development of thinking is influenced by new information and existing ideas that come and are formed through sensations.

Speech is a means of communication. Speech is formed under the influence of sound signals (phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences, phrases), which are exchanged by individuals using sound sensations. Under the influence of the received signals, active and passive vocabulary and pronunciation skills are formed.

Types of feeling.

All types of sensations have common properties:

quality - these are specific features that distinguish one type of sensation from others (auditory ones differ from other types of sensations in height, timbre; visual ones in saturation, etc.)

intensity is determined by the strength of the acting stimulus and the functional state of the receptor;

duration (duration) is determined by the time of action of the stimulus;

spatial localization - the sensation occurs after some time, the latent period for different species is not the same. This is information about the location of the stimulus in space, which gives us distant receptors (auditory, visual).

Reasons for distinguishing types of sensations:

in connection with the sense organs, they distinguish visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory;

according to the location of the receptors, they are distinguished:

interoceptive sensations - signaling the state of the internal processes of the body / organic sensations and sensations of pain. They are among the least conscious and always retain their proximity to emotional states.

exteroceptive sensations - receptors are located on the surface of the body, provide information about the properties of the external environment.

Propreoctive sensations - receptors are located in the muscles, ligaments. They give information about the movement and position of our body / sense of balance, movement.

on contact with an irritant emit:

distant sensations - auditory, visual, etc. Provide information about the properties of the stimulus without direct contact of the receptor with the object itself.

contact sensations - skin, taste, organic. Occur when the receptor is directly exposed to the object.

on the basis of genetic classification distinguish:

protopathic sensations - described by the English neurologist Head in 1918. By them it is customary to understand more primitive, affective, less differentiated and localized, which include organic feelings of hunger, thirst, etc.

epicritical sensations are the highest type of sensations that are not subjective in nature, are separated from emotional states, reflect objective objects of the external world and are much closer to complex individual processes.

a special group of non-specific sensations stands out - people have vibration receptors, which are especially developed in the blind).

Depending on the nature of the stimuli acting on a given analyzer, and on the nature of the sensations arising in this case, separate types of sensations are distinguished.

First of all, it is necessary to single out a group of five types of sensations, which are a reflection of the properties of objects and phenomena of the external world - visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and skin. The second group consists of three types of sensations that reflect the state of the body - organic, balance sensations, motor. The third group consists of two types of special sensations - tactile and pain, which are either a combination of several sensations (tactile.), Or sensations of different origin (pain).

visual sensations.

Visual sensations - sensations of light and color - play a leading role in a person's knowledge of the external world. Scientists have found that 80 to 90 percent of information from the outside world enters the brain through the visual analyzer, 80 percent of all work operations are carried out under visual control. Thanks to visual sensations, we learn the shape and color of objects, their size, volume, remoteness. Visual sensations help a person navigate in space, coordinate movements. With the help of sight, a person learns to read and write. Books, cinema, theater, television reveal the whole world to us. No wonder the great naturalist Helmholtz believed that of all the human senses, the eye is the best gift and most wonderful product of the creative forces of nature.

The colors that a person feels are divided into achromatic and chromatic. Achromatic colors are black, white and gray intermediate between them. Chromatic - all shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. White color is the result of the impact on the eye of all light waves that make up the spectrum. Achromatic colors reflect rods that are located at the edges of the retina. The cones are located in the center of the retina. They function only in daylight and reflect chromatic colors. The sticks function at any time of the day. Therefore, at night, all objects seem to us black and gray.

Color has a different effect on the well-being and performance of a person. It has been established, for example, that the optimal coloring of the workplace can increase labor productivity by 20-25 percent. Color also has a different effect on the success of educational work. The most optimal color for painting the walls of classrooms is orange-yellow, which creates a cheerful, upbeat mood, and green, which creates an even, calm mood. Red color excites; dark blue is depressing; both of them tire the eyes.

The less light, the worse a person sees. Therefore, you can not read in poor lighting. At dusk, it is necessary to turn on electric lighting earlier so as not to cause excessive stress in the work of the eye, which can be harmful to vision, and contribute to the development of myopia in schoolchildren.

Special studies speak of the importance of lighting conditions in the origin of myopia: in schools located on wide streets, there are usually fewer nearsighted people than in schools located on narrow streets built up with houses. In schools where the ratio of window area to floor area in classrooms was 15 percent, there were more nearsighted people than in schools where the ratio was 20 percent.

Auditory sensations.

Hearing, like vision, plays an important role in human life. The ability of verbal communication depends on hearing. Auditory communication is of great importance in human life. Thanks to them, a person hears speech, has the ability to communicate with other people. With hearing loss, people usually lose the ability to speak. Speech can be restored, but on the basis of muscle control, which can replace auditory control. The human auditory analyzer can perceive sound waves with a frequency of oscillations per second. Auditory sensations reflect: the pitch, which depends on the frequency of vibration of sound waves; loudness, which depends on the amplitude of their oscillations; timbre of sound - forms of vibrations of sound waves. All auditory sensations can be reduced to three types - speech, musical, noise. Musical is the singing and sounds of most musical instruments. Noises - the sound of a motor, the rumble of a moving train, the sound of rain, etc. Hearing to distinguish speech sounds is called phonemic. It is formed in vivo depending on the speech environment. The musical ear is no less social than the speech ear; it is brought up and formed, just like the speech ear. Strong and prolonged noises passing through the organ of hearing cause a loss of nervous energy in people, damage the cardiovascular system, reduce attention, reduce hearing and performance, and lead to nervous disorders. Noise has a negative effect on mental activity, so special measures are being taken to combat it.

An irritant for the auditory analyzer are sound waves - longitudinal vibrations of air particles propagating in all directions from the sound source. When air vibrations enter the ear, they cause the eardrum to vibrate.

The brain end of the auditory analyzer is located in the temporal lobes of the cortex. Hearing, like vision, plays an important role in human life. The ability of verbal communication depends on hearing. With hearing loss, people usually lose the ability to speak as well. Speech can be restored, but on the basis of muscle control, which in this case will replace auditory control. This is done through special training. Therefore, some deaf-deaf people can speak satisfactorily without hearing sounds at all.

Vibration sensitivity is adjacent to auditory sensations. They have a common nature of reflected physical phenomena. Vibration sensations reflect vibrations of an elastic medium. This type of sensitivity is figuratively called "contact hearing". No specific vibration receptors/humans have been found. At present, it is believed that all tissues of the body can reflect the vibrations of the external and internal environment. In humans, vibrational sensitivity is subordinated to auditory and visual.

There are three characteristics of auditory sensations. Auditory sensations reflect the pitch of the sound, which depends on the frequency of vibrations of sound waves, the volume, which depends on the amplitude of their vibrations, and timbre - a reflection of the form of vibrations of sound waves. The timbre of sound is the quality that distinguishes sounds that are equal in pitch and loudness. Different timbres differ from each other in the voices of people, the sounds of individual musical instruments.

All auditory sensations can be reduced to three types - speech, musical and noise. Musical sounds - singing and sounds of most musical instruments. Examples of noise are the noise of a motor, the rumble of a moving train, the crackle of a typewriter, etc. Speech sounds combine musical sounds (vowels) and noise. (Consonants).

A person quickly develops phonemic hearing for the sounds of his native language. It is more difficult to perceive a foreign language, since each language differs in its phonemic features. The ear of many foreigners simply does not distinguish the words "Flame", "dust", "drank" - the words for the Russian ear are completely dissimilar. A resident of Southeast Asia will not hear the difference in the words "boots" and "dogs".

Strong and prolonged noise causes significant loss of nervous energy in people, damages the cardiovascular system - absent-mindedness appears, hearing decreases, performance decreases, and nervous disorders are observed. Noise has a negative effect on mental activity. Therefore, special measures are being taken in our country to combat noise. In particular, in a number of cities it is forbidden to give automobile and railway signals unnecessarily, it is forbidden to break the silence after 11 pm.

vibration sensations.

Vibration sensitivity is adjacent to auditory sensations. They have a common nature of reflected physical phenomena. Vibration sensations reflect vibrations of an elastic medium. No specific vibration receptors have been found in humans. At present, it is believed that all tissues of the body can reflect the vibrations of the external and internal environment. In humans, vibrational sensitivity is subordinated to auditory and visual. For the deaf and deaf-blind, vibration sensitivity compensates for hearing loss. Short vibrations have a tonic effect on the body of a healthy person, but prolonged and intense vibrations tire and can cause painful phenomena.

Taste sensations.

Taste sensations are caused by the action on taste buds of substances dissolved in saliva or water. A dry piece of sugar placed on a dry tongue will not give any taste sensations.

Taste buds are taste buds located on the surface of the tongue, pharynx and palate. There are four kinds; accordingly, there are four elementary taste sensations: the sensation of sweet, sour, salty and bitter: The variety of taste depends on the nature of the combination of these qualities and on the addition of olfactory sensations to the taste sensations: by combining sugar, salt, quinine and oxalic acid in different proportions, it was possible to simulate some of the taste sensations.

Olfactory sensations.

This is one of the most ancient, simple, but vital sensations. Olfactory organs are olfactory cells located in the nasal cavity. Irritants for the olfactory analyzer are particles of odorous substances that enter the nasal cavity along with the air.

In modern man, olfactory sensations play a relatively minor role. But with damage to hearing and vision, the sense of smell, along with other remaining intact analyzers, becomes especially important. The blindly deaf use their sense of smell, just as the sighted use their eyesight: they identify familiar places by smell and recognize familiar people.

Skin sensations.

This is the most widely represented type of sensuality. There are two types of skin sensations - tactile (sensations of touch) and temperature (sensations of heat and cold). Accordingly, on the surface of the skin there are different types of nerve endings, each of which gives a sensation of only touch, only cold, only heat. The sensitivity of different parts of the skin to each of these types of irritations is different. Touch is most felt on the tip of the tongue and on the fingertips; the back is less sensitive to touch. The skin of those parts of the body that are usually covered by clothing is most sensitive to the effects of heat and cold.

A peculiar kind of skin sensations is vibrational sensations that occur when the surface of the body is exposed to air vibrations produced by moving or oscillating bodies. In normally hearing people, this type of sensation is poorly developed. However, with hearing loss, especially in deaf-blind people, this type of sensation develops noticeably and serves to orient such people in the world around them. Through vibrational sensations, they feel music, even recognize familiar melodies, feel a knock on the door, talk by tapping Morse code with their foot and perceiving floor shaking, they learn about approaching transport on the street, etc.

organic sensations.

Organic sensations include sensations of hunger, thirst, satiety, nausea, suffocation, etc. The corresponding receptors are located in the walls of internal organs: the esophagus, stomach, and intestines. During the normal functioning of the internal organs, individual sensations merge into one sensation, which constitutes the general well-being of a person.

Feelings of balance. The organ of balance sensation is the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear, which gives signals about the movement and position of the head. The normal functioning of the organs of balance is very important for a person. For example, when determining the suitability for the specialty of a pilot, especially an astronaut pilot, the activity of the balance organs is always checked. The organs of balance are closely connected with other internal organs. With a strong overexcitation of the balance organs, nausea and vomiting are observed (the so-called sea or air sickness). However, with regular training, the stability of the balance organs increases significantly.

Motor sensations.

Motor, or kinesthetic, sensations are sensations of movement and position of body parts. Receptors for the motor analyzer are located in muscles, ligaments, tendons, and articular surfaces. Motor sensations signal the degree of muscle contraction and the position of parts of our body, for example, how much the arm is bent at the shoulder, elbow, etc.

Tactile sensations.

Tactile sensations are a combination, a combination of skin and motor sensations when palpating objects, that is, when a moving hand touches them. The sense of touch is of great importance in human labor activity, especially when performing labor operations that require great accuracy. With the help of touch, palpation is the knowledge of the world by a small child. This is one of the important sources of obtaining information about the objects surrounding it.

In people deprived of sight, touch is one of the most important means of orientation and cognition. As a result of practice, it reaches great perfection. Such people can deftly peel potatoes, thread a needle, do simple modeling, even sewing.

Pain.

Pain sensations are of a different nature. Firstly, there are special receptors (“pain points”) located on the surface of the skin and in the internal organs and muscles. Mechanical damage to the skin, muscles, diseases of internal organs give a feeling of pain. Secondly, sensations of pain arise under the action of a superstrong stimulus on any analyzer. Blinding light, deafening sound, intense cold or heat radiation, a very sharp odor also cause pain.

Painful sensations are very unpleasant, but they are our reliable guard, warning us of danger, signaling trouble in the body. If it were not for the pain, a person would often not notice a serious ailment or dangerous injuries. Not for nothing did the ancient Greeks say: "Pain is the watchdog of health." Complete insensitivity to pain is a rare anomaly, and it brings a person not joy, but serious trouble.

List of used literature

1., Kondratiev: Textbook for industr. - ped. technical schools. - M.: Higher. school, 1989.

2. Lindsay P., Norman D. Human information processing. Introduction to psychology. - M., 1974.

3. Luria and perception.

4. Nemov. Proc. For students of higher, pedagogical, educational institutions. In 2 books. Book. 1. General foundations of psychology. - M.: Enlightenment: Vlados, 19s.

5. General psychology, edited by others. M. Enlightenment 1981.

6. Petrovsky in psychology. Moscow 1995.

7. Psychology and Pedagogy: Textbook/, etc.; Rep. ed. cand. philosophy sciences, associate professor. - M.: INFRA-M;

8. Psychology and pedagogy. Proc. allowance for universities. Compiled and editor-in-chief Radugin editor Krotkov, 19s.

9. Rubinshtein of general psychology. V2t. T1. M. 1989.

10. Rudik. Textbook for students of technical schools of physical culture. M., "Physical culture and sport", 1976.

11. Social psychology. Brief essay. Under the general editorship and. M., Politizdat, 1975.

In interpreting the problem of reflecting real reality, one should first of all pay attention to the dependence of sensation on matter and the complete independence of the existence of matter from our sensations; matter, acting on our senses, produces a sensation. Sensation depends on the brain, nerves, retina, etc., i.e. from matter organized in a certain way. At the same time, the phenomena of the objective world are reflected adequately through the sense organs, and reflection distortions have their own patterns.

It should be noted that reflection depends on the forms of existence of matter. In inanimate nature, it manifests itself in the form of mechanical, physical and chemical changes. In wildlife, reflection can be biological, when the body treats all external influences selectively, actively, which contributes to the formation of self-regulation, and mental, when there is a reaction not only to biologically significant stimuli, but also to signals about biologically significant environmental influences, which produces foresight. .

The cognitive process, i.e. the process of reflecting objective reality - objects of the world around us and phenomena - begins with sensation. Objects of the external and internal world affect the central nervous system not directly, but through extero-, ingero- and proprioreceptors.

At the same time, two types of exteroreceptors are distinguished: distant receptors, i.e. perceiving stimuli outside of direct contact with an object of the external world (vision, hearing, smell, thermal sensations), and contact receptors, the activity of which requires direct irritation, such as touch (taste, various types of tactile sensitivity, vibrational sensation).

The receptor is the peripheral end of a particular analyzer. With the help of the receptor, a primary, rough analysis is carried out. The central end of the analyzer is located in the cerebral cortex, where fine analysis takes place. The principle of operation is as follows: when exposed to any stimulus, the peripheral nerve endings of the corresponding analyzer are excited, the excitation is transmitted along the afferent path to the central cells. As a result, we experience this or that sensation. And if irritation is the very fact of contact with an object of the external world, if excitation is a physiological process in nerve cells and fibers, then sensation is a mental process, a consequence of irritations and excitations that have just taken place. Sensation is a subjective image of the objective world.

Thus, sensation is the process of reflection by a person of individual properties of objects and phenomena of objective reality, which directly affects his senses. Each of our sensations has quality, strength and duration.

The quality of sensation is its inner essence, what distinguishes one sensation from another. For example, the qualities of visual sensations are colors - blue, red, brown, etc., auditory - the sounds of a person's voice, musical tones, the noise of falling water, etc.

The strength (intensity) of sensations is determined by one or another degree of expression of this quality. On a foggy morning, the outlines of the forest, the contours of buildings are perceived by the organ of vision only in general terms, indistinctly. As the fog disappears, it becomes possible to distinguish a coniferous forest from a deciduous one, a three-story house from a four-story one. The strength of the visual stimulus, and consequently the sensation, continues to grow in the future. Now you can see individual trees, their branches, in the windows of the house - window frames, flowers on the windowsill, curtains, etc.

The duration of a sensation is the time during which a person retains the impression of that particular sensation. The duration of sensation is fundamentally different from the duration of stimulation. Thus, the action of the stimulus may already be completed, but the sensation continues to take place for some time. For example, a sensation of pain after a jerky blow, burning sensation after a single touch with a hot object. The sensation has a certain spatial localization. Any sensation is always colored in a certain, most often specific tone, i.e. has an appropriate emotional connotation. Depending on their quality, strength and duration, sensations can cause positive or negative emotions. The light smell of lilac contributes to the appearance of a pleasant feeling, the same smell, concentrated and existing for a long time, can lead to dizziness, nausea, and general poor health. The opaque light of an electric bulb is soothing, the intermittent light is annoying (for example, when riding a bicycle next to a loose fence that blocks the brightly shining sun).

The emergence of appropriate emotions with certain sensations is an individual process. One person likes to listen to loud music, the other does not, one person likes the smell of gasoline, another one is annoyed by it. The emotional coloring of sensations is also individual.

In addition to the emotional sensation, a slightly different coloring may also occur during the sensation (though in very rare cases). For example, the famous Russian composers A.N. Scriabin and N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov's natural hearing was combined with the feeling of simultaneous coloring of perceived sounds in completely specific colors of the spectrum. In particular, complex chords (seventh chords) N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov perceived it as follows: do-mi, sol, si - painted in a bluish-golden color, d-fa, a-flat, si - in a bluish-greenish-pink with a grayish tint, etc. Coloring for N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov also had some triads. At the same time, in all triads, the notes C-C "enlightened the harmony", B - "darkened", and la gave the chord "a shade of clear, spring, pink".

This phenomenon is called synesthesia. The French authors who described this phenomenon called it "color hearing" (audition colorde). It can take place not only when perceiving musical tones, but also when listening to any sounds, for example, at the time of reading poetry. The physiological basis of this phenomenon is an unusual irradiation of the excitation process with a greater or lesser capture of the central part of another analyzer. This is based on the natural qualities of this or that human analyzer. In the future, these qualities as a result of constant training develop and sometimes reach a significant degree of severity.

As a result of direct or prolonged action of the stimulus, the sensitivity of the analyzer may increase or decrease, leading to adaptation of sensations or exacerbation (sensitization) of them. Subthreshold stimuli do not cause awareness of sensations.

By modality (analyzer type), several types of sensations are distinguished: visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile, olfactory, proprioceptive and organic (interoceptive). The latter include sensations associated with the activity of internal organs - sensations of hunger, satiety, sexual satisfaction, thirst, etc. Organic feelings ("dark feelings", as I.M. Sechenov called them) are always not local, but generalized in nature and are experienced man as certain states of the organism in general.

The interaction of sensations can give rise to so-called inter-modal sensations (warm color, light sound, spicy food, prickly gaze, heavy smell, etc.).

In practical activity, a person deals mainly with objects, the individual aspects and qualities of which appear in the form of various properties. These individual properties are known to us in the process of sensations. And just as knowledge of any one symptom is not enough to make a diagnosis, it would be impossible to form a correct idea about this particular object, using only one of its properties.

Sensation is the transformation of the energy of external stimulus into a fact of consciousness. For example, there is an object in front of a person. The first sensation - "transparency". At this stage of human interaction with a specific object, nothing definite can yet be said, because glass, water, ice, and some plastic masses, etc. have the property of transparency. The new sensation is "the object is solid". The idea of ​​water is excluded. Another feeling - "the object is hollow, its walls are thin, at normal room temperature." Therefore, there can be no talk of ice. Further, it turns out that the weight of the object is quite significant. Therefore, the assumption of plastic must be questioned. Two more sensations come to the rescue: "the object does not deform when pressed and makes a characteristic sound when tapped." The conclusion suggests itself: "Probably glass." Following the synthesis of all these - in our example sequential, but in reality almost simultaneous - sensations, they are compared with the properties of a similar object previously perceived (a feeling of thirst, heaviness in the hand, a feeling of moisture in the mouth, the passage of heaviness through the esophagus, etc. ). As a result of this almost instantaneous analytical-synthetic activity, the substratum of which is a certain complex of sensations, a new psychological category is born - perception. Now the person is sure that he has an empty glass in his hands.