Brief description of the main human feelings. The main characteristics of taste. Chicken flavor

Areas of the brain where information from certain sense organs is processed.

Cones that sense color and rods that sense light and dark in the retina.

The answer to this question can be very different. Conservatives, following Aristotle, speak of five senses - hearing, touch, sight, smell and taste. Poets insist on the sixth, which includes either a sense of beauty, or intuition, or something else. These are non-specialists. But physiologists and physicians also do not agree with each other. The most cautious of them now count only three feelings in a person, the most radical - 33.

Indeed, we often use feelings that are not included in the list of Aristotle. Does seeing, hearing, or any of the other five senses help you perform a common neurological test where the doctor asks you to close your eyes and touch the tip of your nose with one finger or the other? And which of the five feelings torment you while pitching at sea? What sense allows you to determine if the tea in the glass is too hot?

So how many feelings does a person have? See how to count.

We can say that there are only three senses: chemical (smell and taste), mechanical (hearing and touch) and light (sight). The reaction of the corresponding sense organs is based on different physical and chemical mechanisms. But even these three feelings can be classified in more detail. For example, taste actually includes five senses: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (the Japanese word for the taste of monosodium glutamate, a condiment that is indispensable in concentrated soups). A few years ago, scientists discovered that there are separate receptors on the tongue for the taste of umami. French physiologists recently found receptors that respond to the taste of fat, and they are not only on the tongue, but also in small intestine(not without reason a good portion of castor bean oil, known colloquially as castor oil, makes its way to our guts). So a person has six senses of taste.

Vision can be considered as one sense - the sensation of light, as two - light and color, or as four - light and primary colors: red, green and blue. Frogs and some other animals have separate receptors in the retina of their eyes that react to movement in the field of vision - another sense (humans, as far as we know, do not have such receptors).

Let's take a rumor. This is one feeling or several hundred, according to the number of hair cells in inner ear, each of which responds to its own frequency of oscillation? It is also interesting that as a result of aging or certain diseases, a person may lose the perception of certain frequencies, while the rest will be heard as before.

As for the sense of smell, at least 2000 types of receptors are involved in it. Among them there are very specialized ones, for example, reacting to the smell of the sea, to the smell of lilies of the valley. Should these sensations be considered together, as a single sense of smell, or separately?

We are all able to feel the temperature of surrounding objects, the degree of bending of the limbs in the joints (which allows us to eyes closed quite accurately find the tip of the nose with your finger), we feel an imbalance (which, when pitching, leads to seasickness). Feeling an empty or full stomach Bladder. Is it possible to consider as feelings those sensations that do not reach consciousness, since there is simply no need for this? For example, a person has a sensor that senses pH cerebrospinal fluid, but the adjustment of this parameter occurs without the participation of consciousness.

Perhaps the list should also include a sense of time. Although few of us can tell what time it is without a watch with great accuracy, many of us are quite confident in evaluating the elapsed periods of time, and all have internal biorhythms.

Even conservatives agree that in addition to the classic five people have a sense of pain. And the radicals distinguish three pain sensations: skin, bodily (pain in the joints, bones and spine) and visceral (pain in the insides).

Now most scientists recognize the existence of 21 feelings in humans. The upper limit has not yet been set.

Human sense organs are given by nature for good adaptation in the world around. Previously, in the primitive world, the sense organs made it possible to avoid mortal danger and helped in the extraction of food. The sense organs are combined into five main systems, thanks to which we can see, smell, touch, hear sounds, and taste the food we eat.

Eyes

The eyes are perhaps the most important among the sense organs. With the help of them we receive about 90% of all incoming information. The rudiments of the organs of vision are formed during the development of the embryo from its brain.

The visual analyzer consists of: eyeballs, optic nerves, subcortical centers and higher visual centers located in occipital lobes. The eyes perceive information, and with the visual cortex we are able to see and evaluate what information the periphery supplies us. The eyes are gorgeous optical instrument, the principle of which is used today in cameras.

Light passing through the cornea is refracted, narrowed and reaches the lens (biconvex lens), where it is refracted again. The light then passes through vitreous body and converges in focus on the retina (is part of the center, rendered to the periphery). Visual acuity in humans depends on the ability of the cornea and lens to refract light. In addition, the eyes are able to move to the side, reducing the load on the spine, thanks to three pairs of oculomotor muscles.

Human sense organs: ears

The ears are part of the organ of hearing. The ear consists of three parts: the outer, middle and inner ear. The outer ear is represented by the auricle, which gradually passes into the external auditory meatus. The auricle has an interesting shape and consists mainly of cartilage. Only the shell lobe does not have cartilage. The outer ear is necessary in order to determine the source of the sound, its localization.

In the external passage, which narrows as you move inward, there are sulfur glands that produce the so-called earwax. After the external auditory canal, the middle ear begins, the outer wall of which is the tympanic membrane, capable of perceiving sound vibrations. Behind the membrane is the tympanic cavity, the main part of the middle ear. AT tympanic cavity there are small bones - the stirrup hammer and the anvil, combined into a single chain.

Next, the middle ear is followed by the inner ear represented by the cochlea (with auditory cells) and the semicircular canals, which are the organs of balance. Sound vibrations are perceived by the membrane, transmitted to three auditory ossicles, further into the auditory cells. From the auditory cells, irritation goes along auditory nerve to the center.

Smell

A person can perceive smells thanks to the organ of smell. Olfactory cells occupy a small part in the upper nasal passages. The cells are shaped like hairs, thanks to which they are able to capture the subtleties of various odors. The perceived information is sent along the olfactory (olfactory) threads to the bulbs and further to the cortical centers of the brain. A person can temporarily lose his sense of smell with various colds. Prolonged loss of smell should cause alarm, as it occurs in case of damage to the tract itself or the brain.

Human sense organs: taste

Thanks to the organ of taste, a person is able to evaluate the food he eats in this moment. The taste of food is perceived by special papillae located on the tongue, as well as taste buds in the palate, epiglottis and upper esophagus. The organ of taste is closely related to the organ of smell, so it is not surprising when we feel the taste of food worse when we suffer from some kind of colds. On the tongue, there are certain zones responsible for determining a particular taste. For example, the tip of the tongue determines sweet, the middle determines salty, the edges of the tongue are responsible for determining the acidity of the product, and the root is responsible for bitterness.

Touch

Thanks to the sense of touch, a person is able to study the world around him. He always knows what he has touched, smooth or rough, cold or hot. In addition, thanks to countless receptors that perceive any touch, a person can get joy (there is a release of endorphins - hormones of joy). He can perceive any pressure, change in temperature around and pain. But the receptors themselves, located on the surface, can only report temperature, vibration frequency, pressure force.

Information about what we touched or who hit us, etc. reports the highest station - the brain, which constantly analyzes many incoming signals. With excessive impulses, the brain selectively receives more important impulses. For example, first of all, the brain evaluates signals that are dangerous to human life and health. If pain occurs, if you burned your hand, a command is given to immediately pull your hand away from the damaging factor. Thermoreceptors respond to temperature, baroreceptors to pressure, tactile receptors to touch, and there are also proprioceptors that respond to vibration and muscle stretch.

Signs of the disease

A sign of a disease of one or another sense organ is, first of all, the loss of its main function. If the organ of vision is damaged, vision disappears or worsens, if the organ of hearing is damaged, hearing is reduced or absent.

With the help of these organs, we get an idea of environment. Five separate systems respond to various stimuli: eyes allow you to receive visual information; ears pick up sound vibrations and participate in the regulation of balance; nose and tongue identify smells and taste sensations respectively, and sensory nerve endings in the skin allow us to sense touch (the sense of touch), temperature changes, and pain.

The organs of vision are the eyes, which in the embryo develop from two "kidneys" formed from the brain. The captured image in the form of nerve signals is sent to the brain, where they are decoded and created. visual perception. The eye is directed to the object of vision by six separate muscles that rotate it in different directions. Visual acuity depends on the refraction, or light refractive power, of the lens and cornea. Rays of light entering the eye are focused on the retina, and an image is formed on it.

Irritation nerve cells in the retina causes the formation of different impulses according to the brightness of light and color, which are deciphered by the brain, where a visual image is created. The bright spot in the photo on the right is the so-called optic disc, where all the nerve endings of the retina are collected in optic nerve extending from the eye to the brain. You can also see the arteries that diverge from the disk and supply blood to the retina and other parts of the eye.

Hearing

The auricle not only protects the ear from damage, but also acts as a receiving device that directs sound vibrations to the eardrum.

The ear, which consists of the outer, middle and internal departments, is not only an organ of hearing, but also determines the position of the body and balance. The outer ear is Auricle which protects the ear canal from damage. For protection against foreign particles in ear canal there are also hairs and special glands that secrete sulfur. The middle ear contains the three smallest bones in the body: the malleus, anvil, and stirrup, which connect the eardrum to the eardrum. inner ear containing the cochlea - the organ of hearing. fluctuations eardrum turn into nerve impulses that the brain perceives as sound.

The nasal passages are connected with three pairs of sinuses (air-filled cavities of the skull). The sensitive endings of the olfactory nerves, similar to hairs, protrude into the nasal cavity. They capture and detect odors in the air, relaying information to the olfactory bulbs, which are directly connected to the brain.

Odors are detected by hair-like olfactory nerves that protrude into the nasal cavity at the top of the nose and capture and analyze the molecules in the air we breathe. The sense of smell may be disturbed by smoking or temporarily impaired by colds or allergic diseases. Permanent loss of smell can occur due to nerve damage (for example, with a skull injury) or as a result of damage to the part of the brain that analyzes smells.

organs of taste

The main taste buds are the taste buds located in the protruding papillae on the upper surface of the tongue. They are able to distinguish only four basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The taste buds that determine each of these sensations are located in certain areas of the tongue. Taste is closely related to the sense of smell, which helps us to capture a wide variety of aromas. Loss of the sense of smell usually leads to a deterioration in taste sensations; some medicines have the same effect, and sometimes a lack of zinc in the body.

In different parts of the tongue, specific taste sensations are determined: in the back - bitter, on the sides - sour, in the front - salty and at the tip - sweet.

The sense of touch is associated with specific receptors that are immersed in the thickness of the skin at different depths. Free nerve endings respond to touch slight increase temperature and cold. Some closed nerve endings instantly respond to pressure, others to vibration and stretch. Thermoreceptors respond to sensations of heat and cold and transmit signals to the hypotapamic region of the brain about the need to regulate body temperature.

Everyone understands touch. skin sensations that are transmitted along the nerves from sensory nerve endings located in the skin. Different kinds receptors determine different sensations. The number of receptors varies from one area of ​​the body to another: for example, there are many nerve endings in the fingertips and around the mouth, while there are very few in the skin of the middle back. The sense of touch may be impaired by local traumatic injury skin receptors or as a result of diseases that affect nerve fibers, peripheral nervous system and/or brain.

The main signs of a disease of the sense organs

The main symptom of a violation of any of the senses is a partial or total loss sensitivity. Depending on which of the sense organs is affected, pain or other symptoms of the disease may also occur.

FROM kindergarten everyone has learned and got used to the fact that there are five sense organs. The traditional classification of the sense organs still insists on this. However, it is difficult to argue that we also feel movement, body position, pain, temperature - can we call those who perceive them sensory systems individual bodies feelings? The sense organ includes specific perceiving receptors, neural pathways, transmitting information to the brain, and a special section (or sections) of the brain that processes this information.

Senses can be divided into remote (sight, hearing, smell) and contact (taste and touch). Then there will be two. You can take as a basis the type of effect on the receptors: mechanical stimulation activates the receptors for hearing, touch and vestibular apparatus, chemical is responsible for taste and smell, and the reaction to light stimuli "monopolized" vision. Feelings can be divided into physical and chemical. But this is extremely general classification. So how many sense organs do we have?

The organs of vision include two types of photoreceptors that transmit to the brain completely different information. The rods respond to light, and the cones, which can perceive the wavelength, transmit to human brain color information. There are three types of cones on the retina, each with a different task. S-type cones perceive signals in the short-wave, blue-violet part of the visible spectrum, M-type - in yellow-green, and L-type - in yellow-red. This gives rise to the discussion that vision includes the four senses. However, information received from receptors different types, is processed in one - visual - section of the cerebral cortex.

The unique smell of lilies of the valley

The sense of smell is the record holder for the number of different types of receptors, there are about 2000 of them. Recognizable smells are formed, like chords, from the simultaneous stimulation of several receptors. But there are also specialized receptors. Reacting, for example, to the smell of lilies of the valley and nothing else. The olfactory center in the cerebral cortex processes all the information from the olfactory receptors and gives us the ability to distinguish about a trillion different odors.

Chicken flavor

The four key types of taste buds are well known: they provide the perception of salty, bitter, sour, and sweet. It is also known that the tongue has receptors for protein foods - rich in protein the food seems especially delicious. These receptors respond to glutamic acid and its salts are glutamates. Back in 1907, the Japanese chemist Kikune Ikeda (Kikunae Ikeda) isolated this amino acid from algae and called its taste umami (jap. “appetizing taste”). Specific receptors for umami were not discovered until a hundred years later. At the same time, French scientists found fat receptors on the tongue (and not only on the tongue, but also in the small intestine). And there is reason to believe that the list of taste buds will continue to grow.

Give "la"

Hearing receptors are also highly specific: from 12 to 20 thousand hair cells located in the cochlea of ​​the inner ear respond to different frequencies, transforming mechanical vibrations into electrical potentials. Some people perceive high tones before ultrasound, while others do not. With age, with injuries, after illnesses, the ability of receptors to pick up individual frequencies can change, while a person perceives other tones without changes. Receptors responsible for determining the direction of the sound source have also been found.

Touch and press

Touch receptors are located in the skin and mucous membranes. They allow you to feel the hardness, roughness, sharpness, pressure force and other tactile characteristics of objects. Mechanical deformation of the receptor reduces the electrical resistance of its membrane, which generates an electrical impulse for transmission to the CNS. Receptors respond to touch, pressure, stretching and other contact stimuli. The feeling of pressure is one way to judge the weight of an object.

A visitor strokes a rabbit in the first in the Far East petting zoo"Garden City", the inhabitants of which can be fed, stroked and picked up. Photo: Vitaly Ankov / Ria Novosti

And you are so cold

Thermoreception with great accuracy informs us about the temperature of objects. Thermoreceptors are located in the skin, mucous membranes, cornea of ​​the eye, as well as in a special part of the brain - the hypothalamus. There are two types of thermoreceptors: heat and cold. Some thermoreceptors can also perceive tactile information, others are strictly specific to temperature.

keep your balance

Vestibular receptors are located in the inner ear. There, in three mutually perpendicular planes, there are three semicircular canals filled with a thick liquid. Acceleration of the fluid when moving through the channel in one direction causes excitation of hair cells, and in the other - inhibition. In the inner ear, calcareous formations - otoliths - are also located on the membrane. Sliding along the membrane, they excite the receptors connected to it. Information from hair cells is transmitted to medulla, activating the neurons of the vestibular complex, and from there to spinal cord, cerebellum, cortex big brain and other parts of the nervous system.

Not feeling legs

If the vestibular apparatus tells about our position relative to the ground, then proprioception gives information about the position of body parts relative to each other and allows you to easily bring a spoon to your mouth. Proprioception is made up of three key sensations. The first is the feeling of the position of the joints with an accuracy of 0.5 degrees. The second is a sense of movement that allows us to control our actions. A person deprived of signals from these receptors often stops moving and is forced to learn anew, based on visual information. The third is the feeling of strength, which makes it possible to assess the resistance to action, in particular, to determine the weight of objects with great accuracy. A person does not even realize that the parietal lobe of the brain is constantly updating the actual scheme of the body in our minds.

The most unloved sensory system

Nociception is the feeling of pain. There are at least three pain sensations: skin, bodily (pain in the joints, bones and spine) and visceral (pain in the insides). Nociceptors respond to mechanical, chemical and thermal stimuli. Pain receptors have a genetically overestimated sensitivity threshold: only when it is reached, the signal is transmitted to the brain. If the threshold of sensitivity decreases, the nerve fibers of pain receptors are irritated at any external influence. This condition is called hypersensitivity to pain. For a long time nociception was attributed to touch, but even their reaction to anesthesia is different: first, a person stops feeling pain, then temperature, and at the same time still perceives tactile sensations.

Settings

How sensitive should the receptors be? At first glance, the question seems strange: the more sensitive, the better. Everybody's proud acute hearing and vision. However, it is important to remember that the upper threshold of sensitivity should also be comfortable for perception, hypersensitive people receive redundant information: too loud sounds, pungent odors and taste interfere nervous system process signals, and overloading the vestibular apparatus leads to seasickness and other disorders.

More feelings

A person is able to relatively accurately measure time intervals in minutes and hours, but the existence of a “time organ” has not yet been proven. Recently, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the innate sense of probability: scientists investigated the ability of people to predict the outcome of an experiment, guided by "internal feelings", but so far there is no exact data on "probabilistic receptors".

Another interesting question in the near future should be answered by geneticists. It is known that animals have many senses that we do not have: fish and amphibians have electroreception, the bats use ultrasound, and whales use infrasound, many species feel the magnetic field. The question arises - are these feelings inactive in a person or has he completely lost them in the process of evolution?

In any case, it is obvious that we have much more than five sense organs, and with the development of science, their known number will increase.

The question is how much human sense organs, understood both cinema and literature, and, of course, in. In the end, everyone came to the conclusion that their all - five (5). This opinion has become ingrained in our minds, so that each educated person can quickly list their senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

The first three organs, namely the eyes, ears and nose, help us to study the world without any interaction. Therefore, they are always analyzed separately from the tongue and skin. In this case, we need to touch something or try something.

Features of the sense organs: HEARING

This is the very first feeling. Since it begins to develop long before birth. The baby still in the womb catches different sounds, remembers them. The hearing system is very complex. Any vibration, even the smallest, must go a long way from the eardrum to the brain.

It's amazing how our body can remember and carry out associations. When we hear a scream, we immediately begin to panic, run or hide, depending on our habits and character. When we hear a voice, our brain immediately gives an image of the person to whom it belongs. That is, we do not even need to turn around to recognize the interlocutor.

Although the eyes are developed in a child in the womb, he still cannot use them for their intended purpose. After birth, the eyes get used to the world around them. A month later, the child can clearly distinguish objects and faces.

The structure of the eyes and their functions are the most versatile of all the sense organs. Even if you do not hear or speak, vision will make up for these shortcomings. The eyes allow us to absorb about 85% of all information.

Also, vision does not just show us what is around. We immediately analyze color, volume, size, distance and other characteristics. All this is transmitted to the brain, which already systematizes all the data.

For example, you will see something wriggling in the water. The eyes will simply provide information about the vibrations of the water and about something elongated and wriggling. But the brain, using past experience and knowledge, will say that it was a snake.

Features of the sense organs: SMELL

The child begins to distinguish smells only two weeks after birth. They don't give him complete picture what is nearby. But still, they are remembered. In general, the smell is the most fickle sensation. After a series of experiments, it was proved that the sense of smell is always associated with a psychological state.

Features of the sense organs: TASTE

We can taste with our tongue. This organ is covered with taste buds, which provide information to the brain about what we eat. For a long time it was believed that a person distinguishes only 4 tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour. But science does not stand still. It has now been determined that language is capable of distinguishing a large number of shades of food.

Features of the sense organs: TOUCH

Everything is simple here. When a person first touches a new object, he studies and analyzes it. This data is stored. Then, seeing the same object, he does not need to touch it. The brain immediately gives a signal and recalls past sensations. This also applies various items but made from the same material.

The sense of touch makes it impossible to explore the world without other senses.

How many sense organs does a person have: addition

Although there are only five of them in the standard version, science has long introduced its own changes:

1. proprioception. We feel every part of our body even when we close our eyes, ears, mouth and nose.
2. Niceception. These are all sensations associated with pain.
3. Thermoception. Sensation of warmth or cold on the skin.
4. Equibrioception. Responsible for coordination and balance.

This list can go on because human body constantly analyzed.

• The fuller the stomach, the worse hearing becomes.
• Only 1/3 of people can boast of normal vision.
• Without saliva, you cannot taste food.
• Noise can enlarge pupils.

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