AP PSYCH 3.7 Body Senses

Body Senses and Sensory Interaction

• We have four major bodily senses
  • Touch (including pressure and temperature)
  • Pain
  • Vestibular sense (balance and movement)
  • Kinesthesia (position and movement of skeletal joints)
• Despite having a relatively small amount of senses, we are able to feel so many unique sensations because of sensory interaction
  • When multiple senses go off in different places and different intensities, we can discern tiny details from similar stimuli
• Pain is an incredibly important sense for us to know when we are in danger
  • If we had no sense to tell us there was a problem with our body, most cases would lead to death if untreated
  • Some ailments could be seen or felt through other senses, like external wounds, but if there was internal problems, we would not know without pain
• The vestibular and kinesthetic senses our used in our everyday life through our “sense” of direction and orientation in our spatial environment
  • This helps us navigate the world around us without our limbs constantly hitting objects or walls because we wouldn’t know where exactly they are