Beyond the basic five: Exploring four new senses that you didn’t know about
Most of us are familiar with the standard five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. In the five-sense model, each sense is associated with a different and highly visible area of the body – the eyes, ears, mouth, nose and skin. This makes it the most appealing model. But is it enough? A feature of the 5-sense model is that it deals with detecting things outside our bodies. We experience the objects around us through sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. If we limit our senses to those that detect external events, we will never be capable of understanding what is going on inside our bodies. Interestingly, scientists have recently suggested that we may have four more senses that play an important role in how we perceive ourselves, internally. These include pain, temperature, as well as movement-based senses like vestibular (our sense of balance) and proprioception (our sense of our body in our surrounding). Now, that’s amazing, isn’t it? Come, let’s explore the brand-new universe of senses.
Balance (vestibular sense)
Our centre for balance is the vestibular sense. But what is vestibular sense, actually? It is a sense that enables us to move smoothly. It is also sometimes referred to as the feeling of movement, gravity and/or balance. How? Well, this sense allows us to maintain our balance while we are doing many things. For example, the vestibular sense helps in maintaining our balance as we walk and run, as well as when we sit and stand. In addition to helping us walk, it recognises our head position and various other body movements. This sense is experienced through the vestibular organs present inside the inner ear.
Awareness (proprioception)
A person’s awareness of their body in their surroundings is referred to as proprioception. Using this sense, we can efficiently track the whereabouts of various body parts without having to look at them. For example, if you want to reach down and scratch your knee while it’s under the table, your body and hands can do it easily without you having to look at them! How? Well, because your body already knows where your knee and hands are! By making us aware of how our muscles are stretching, proprioception allows us to perform our daily functions with ease.
Wondering how proprioception actually works? Remember the vestibular sense we talked about? Well, that plays a big role here. Proprioception relies on our inner ear’s vestibular system for balance, gravity and kinesthesis (a feeling that lets us know how our joints are moving). All of these assist us in adjusting our muscles and joints so that we can move our bodies and maintain our balance.
Temperature
Temperature is sensed by the receptors on our skin. And this function serves an important role in ensuring our safety. To give you an example, children who have a poor sense of temperature may dress up in a way that is inappropriate to the weather. They may fall sick. Some might also engage in risky situations while handling hot objects. On the other hand, overtly sensitive kids could get easily affected by small changes in temperature! So, an appropriate sense of temperature is essential for our safety as well as well-being, especially for the children.
Pain
Similar to temperature, the sense of pain helps keep us safe. Here is how. Some kids overreact to pain, whereas others underreact to the point where it’s difficult to tell if they’re hurt or sick! So, it might be challenging for parents to understand what their child may be feeling in reality. Also, an underreaction to pain may stop the children from asking for help and getting the care they need. The wound could get worse over time. So, an appropriate reaction to pain sensation is really important for the well-being of children.