Psychology and the Five Senes

Each day we encounter new and exciting things. We may see, hear, touch, smell or taste something differently. This is all possible because of our five senses. Our senses are very intriguing, each serving a different purpose; however they all transmit information to our brain to help us with our day to day activities. Most people have all have five senses; however some people are blind or deaf. In this case they would use one of their other senses to help them. An example would be Helen Keller, she learned to "see" and" hear" with her sense of touch and often recognized visitors by their smell or by vibrations from their walk. (Huffman, 2010, p.134). Even though most people have all five senses, that doesn't mean we all have the same perception about everything. For instance, I could be blindfolded and smell flowers. I could think they are roses and another person could think they are lilies. The five senses works differently for each individual.

The five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are very important in Psychology because they determine the way we interpret and perceive different situations. Each one of these senses is needed even though vision and hearing are the most prominent. These senses give us a sensation, which is the process of detecting, converting and transmitting information from the external and internal environments to the brain. The brain then selects, organizes and interprets the messages into meaningful patterns, which is the process of perception. Each of us is different and what one person may perceive may not be the same as the next person's perception. This is what makes us all different and yet unique in our own ways.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FIVE SENSES

The senses are sensory receptors that communicate information to the brain. The information sent to the brain can be one of two processes. It can be bottom-up processing or top- down processing. Bottom - Up Processing is the process of moving from the parts to the whole, its information processing beginning at the bottom with raw sensory data that are sent to the brain for higher- level analysis and top- down processing moves from the whole to the parts, starting at the high level and then working down. Bottom -up and top - down processing are both important components of sensation and perception. (Huffman, 2010, p.129).

Vision and hearing are the results of what our brains create in response to light and sound waves, not what we see and hear from the outside world. Some people have problems with vision like nearsightedness or farsightedness and it can occur at any age. There also can be problems with hearing such as conduction deafness and nerve deafness. Disease and biological changes associated with aging can cause never deafness, however the main reason for nerve deafness is listening to loud music. It can damage hair cells and lead to permanent hearing loss. Taste, smell and body senses are important because they gather information about our environment. Smell and taste receptors are located near each other and interact so closely, that we have difficulty separating the sensations. The skin senses are very vital. The skin protects the internal organs but also provides the brain with basic survival information. All of our senses have a unique job and working together they are a vital part of our daily survival, even if we are missing one the others will help us to perceive and interpret the information given to our brains.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FIVE SENSES

This topic is important to me because it helps me understand how important my senses are and how they affect my perception of things in life. It gave me a better understanding on how even though, you could be blind or deaf you still can be capable of identifying a person entering a room, by using you sense of smell. I also got a better understanding on how the senses transmit the information to your brain and how we interpret and perceive the information. I learned about the first step in perception. The first step of perception is selection-choosing where to direct our attention. There are three major factors involved in the act of paying attention to some stimuli in our environment and not to others: selective attention, feature detectors and habituation. (Huffman, 2010, p.150). Selective attention helps you to ignore sounds from another