For Teachers: The Five Senses
Posted by PLB Registrar · 3 Comments
How many senses do human beings have?
If you said “as many as two dozen,” you are correct!
Some of them (for example, sensory awareness of hunger and thirst) are still questionable. And, no, common sense did not make the resource lists we consulted at all.
For the purpose of this post, we will focus on just a few of the five commonly understood senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
We have four seemingly independent characteristics of sight: shape, location, color/brightness and motion. Each one is processed in a different part of the visual cortex in our brain.
Sense of Sight
|
SENSE |
WHAT is SENSED |
SENSORS |
|
Vision |
EM waves |
Eyes |
| Mirrorly a Window | http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/mirrorly_window/index.html | |
| What we see is often affected by what we expect to see. | ||
| Persistence of Vision | http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/persistence_of_vision/index.html | |
| Your eye and brain hold on to a series of images to form a single complete picture. | ||
| Fading Dot | http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/fading_dot/index.html | |
| Now you see it; now you don’t. An object without a sharp edge can fade from your view. | ||
| Jacques Cousteau | http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/jacques_cousteau/index.html | |
| There’s more to seeing than meets the eye. | ||
Chemoreceptors on our tongues bind to chemicals in our food and relay the information (perceptions) about the chemicals to our brain. Surprisingly, all those wonderful tastes are transmitted to our brains through only four generally accepted types of “taste bud” receptors on our tongues – those for sweet, sour, salt and bitter.
Each of these is located in its own location on the tongue and conveys information to slightly different regions of the brain. Preferences for certain tastes are acquired and are also influenced by the adequacy of one’s diet and lifestyle choices (eg. zinc deficiency, smoking and excessive use of salt are all contributing factors).
| Chemoreceptor:
Sweetness Saltiness Sourness Bitterness |
Common Locations on Tongue:
Middle-Front Sides Center-Back Very-Back
|
What we refer to as taste is actually flavor, a combination of taste and smell sensory information.
Sense of Taste
| SENSE |
WHAT IS SENSED |
SENSORS |
| Gustation |
Chemicals – Flavor |
Tongue |
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/your_sense_of_taste/index.html
This activity demonstrates the relationship between taste and smell. It is the same as the Olfaction (Smell) activity.
Approximately 80-90% of what we perceive as “taste” actually is due to the sense of smell. Unlike taste, there are hundreds of smell (olfactory) receptors and combinations that make up what we perceive as smell.
Sense of Smell
| SENSE |
WHAT IS SENSED |
SENSORS |
| Olfaction |
Chemicals – Odor |
Nose |
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/your_sense_of_taste/index.html
This activity demonstrates the relationship between smell and taste. This activity is the same as the Gustation (Taste) activity.
Smell is a very ancient sense which directly communicates with memory without passing through the linguistic areas (which cleverly mistake everything). Scent recalls memories like nothing else can. In fact, we must first remember a smell before identifying it. Studies have shown that recall can be enhanced if learning was done in the presence of an odor and if that same odor is presented at the time of recall. Consider how this might impact academic performance on standardized assessments.
From Professional Learning Board’s online continuing education course for teachers: Accommodating All Learners
I took a Sensation and Perception course last year with a professor whom specializes in this field, and he informed the class that the 4 tastes are not organized on a “map”. You can taste any kind of food on any part of your tongue the same way. Just try it for yourself!
Kristin,
We currently have everyone in the office doing the taste test with chocolate. Seriously, that’s a great article: http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html Thanks!
While this taste map is commonly shared, every person’s mouth has a different distribution of taste buds. Check your own taste mapping to see which parts of your tongue are most sensitive to each type of taste and let us know what you discover.