Environment and surroundings are perceived by humans through the senses. The classic five senses are the sense of smell and touch, as well as taste, hearing and sight. They serve the body for protection and orientation.
What are the senses?
Without the senses, humans would not be able to navigate their environment. Without the senses, man would not be able to find his way in his environment. As protective mechanisms, they protect the body from harm and signal danger as alarm sensors. Visual perception occurs through the eyes, auditory through the ears, and tactile through the skin. Taste (gustatory perception) is mainly perceived through the tongue, while smell (olfactory perception) is perceived through the nose. These parts of the body are called the sensory organs. The senses can be divided into the so-called near and far senses. Sight and hearing fall under the remote senses because they also function at a distance. The other senses are near senses because they can usually only be used at short distances. In modern physiology, the senses of temperature and pain, the sense of balance and depth sensitivity (body sensation) also belong to the senses in humans. In so-called synesthetes, sensory perceptions and channels often overlap, resulting in the perception of sounds as color patterns, for example.
Function and task
The task and function of the senses is not only to make life easier for people, but also to warn and protect them from impending danger. People who are limited in their sensory perception often turn out to be in need of help. Finding one’s way around as a blind person is difficult to impossible for many. This is especially true if the restriction is not congenital but caused by accident or illness. A typical situation in which the sense of smell saves lives is a fire. In the same case, this also applies to the sense of touch and body sensation, which warns the brain of pain or even temperature changes. Likewise, the sense of temperature protects against frostbite in winter. When it is cold, the body reacts by chattering its teeth. The sense of taste, on the other hand, primarily helps humans to distinguish between edible and inedible. This can prevent severe poisoning that could lead to death. In modern society, one part of the senses is more of a pleasant add-on than really necessary for life. However, in the early days of evolution, the senses helped humans find their way around and survive. Hearing, like smell, can become an important alarm signal. For this reason, the body still reacts sensitively and deterringly to loud noises. They could symbolize danger. Similar to the sensation of temperature, the sensation of pain is supposed to protect against major injuries. The sense of balance, on the other hand, fulfills a somewhat different function. Without it, humans would not be able to stand upright or even move. If one of the senses is damaged, the human body often compensates for this disability by strengthening the other senses. This ensures a more comprehensive protection of the body. In addition, this mechanism helps orientation in everyday life.
Diseases and ailments
Complaints in the field of sensory organs are in most cases received with extreme restlessness. This is related to their importance in everyday life. For example, it appears as extremely disturbing when the visual acuity decreases – be it due to illness or due to increasing age. Diseases of the eyes are, for example, conjunctivitis, cataracts in old age, as well as visual impairment, which can occur as a cause of other diseases. Inflammation of the optic nerve also affects the strength and intensity of vision. Diseases related to the sense of hearing are, on the one hand, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), in which there are disturbing noises in the ear, and, on the other hand, hearing loss. Hearing loss can also occur in old age, among other things. Complaints such as dizziness or motion sickness are disorders of the sense of balance. Infectious diseases also usually cause short-term impairment of the sense of smell and taste. This is most often the case with colds or the flu. However, sinusitis can also impair the sense of smell.In addition, allergies such as hay fever also affect vision and the sense of smell. Depending on the intensity, the symptoms are similar to those of a cold. But also nervous disorders and stress can affect the senses. In addition, in very few cases a so-called hereditary sensory neuropathy has been diagnosed. This is a functional disorder that manifests itself, among other things, through dispositions in the sensation of pain and touch. In general, nerve diseases affect sensory perception. Likewise, injuries to the nerves can impair the senses or even completely paralyze sensations in different parts of the body. This is especially true for the sense of touch as well as pain and temperature sensations. In addition, mental illnesses can also influence subjective sensory perception. In many diseases, several sensory organs are affected at the same time, as they interact directly with each other. Thus, impairments in the sense of smell also affect the taste buds. The situation is similar with disturbances of the equilibrium. Often, another symptom associated with dizziness is a disturbed field of vision. Affected persons become “black before their eyes.”
