When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. How do human senses help us to navigate senses valentine’s gift world? A close-up of a human eye. There are five basic human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste.

The sensing organs associated with each sense send information to the brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us. However, there are in fact  other human senses in addition to the basic five that you couldn’t live without. These lesser-known senses include spatial awareness and balance. Here’s how the human senses work. Touch is communicated to the brain through neurons in the skin. Touch consists of several distinct sensations communicated to the brain through specialized neurons in the skin. Touch can also influence how humans make decisions.

June 24, 2010, issue of the journal Science. Those tactile sensations are not just changing general orientation or putting people in a good mood,” said Joshua Ackerman, an assistant professor of marketing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They have a specific tie to certain abstract meanings. The outer lens of the eye, called the cornea, is dome shaped. Sight, or perceiving things through the eyes, is a complex process. First, light reflects off an object to the eye.

The transparent outer layer of the eye called the cornea bends the light that passes through the hole of the pupil. The cornea focuses most of the light. Then, it passes through the lens, which continues to focus the light,” explained Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist and retina specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The lens of the eye then bends the light and focuses it on the retina, which is full of nerve cells. Cones translate light into colors, central vision and details.

The rods translate light into peripheral vision and motion. Rods also give humans vision when there is limited light available, like at night. The information translated from the light is sent as electrical impulses to the brain through the optic nerve. Their memory and language skills may be better than those born with sight, as well. Even in the case of being profoundly blind, the brain rewires itself in a manner to use the information at its disposal so that it can interact with the environment in a more effective manner,” Dr.

This sense works via the complex labyrinth that is the human ear. Sound is funneled through the external ear and piped into the external auditory canal. Then, sound waves reach the tympanic membrane, or eardrum. The vibrations travel to the middle ear. This spiral organ is the receptor organ for hearing. Tiny hair cells in the organ of Corti translate the vibrations into electrical impulses. The impulses then travel to the brain via sensory nerves.

The vestibular complex, in the inner ear, is also important for balance, because it contains receptors that regulate a sense of equilibrium. The inner ear is connected to the vestibulocochlear nerve, which carries sound and equilibrium information to the brain. Have you ever listened to a recording of your voice and thought it didn’t sound like you? This is because some qualities of your voice sound different to those around you as you speak.