1. Other Important Senses Module 15
Psychology 7e in Modules

2. Other Important Senses
Sense of touch is a mix of four distinct skin senses- pressure, warmth, cold, and pain.
OBJECTIVE 15-1| Describe the sense of touch. “Touch is both the alpha and omega of affection” (James, 1890).
Bruce Ayers/ Stone/ Getty Images
Psychology 7e in Modules

3. Skin Senses
Only pressure has identifiable receptors, all other skin sensations are variations of pressures, warmth, cold and pain.
Pressure
Vibration
Vibration
Burning hot
Cold, warmth and pain
Psychology 7e in Modules

4. Ashley Blocker (right) feels neither pain
Pain tells the body that something has gone wrong. Usually pain results from damage to the skin and other tissues. There is a rare disease in which the person feels no pain.
OBJECTIVE 15-2| State the purpose of pain, and describe the biopsychosocial perspective on pain.
AP Photo/ Stephen Morton
Ashley Blocker (right) feels neither pain
nor extreme hot or cold.
Psychology 7e in Modules

5. Biopsychosocial Influences

6. Pain
Phantom Limb: Missing limb feels like it is present, like always, before amputation
Visceral Pain: Pain fibers located in internal organs
Referred Pain: Pain felt on surface of body, away from origin point
Somatic Pain: Sharp, bright, fast
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7. Fig.5.28 Visceral pain often seems to come fro m the surface of the body, even though its true origin is internal. Referred pain is believed to result from the fact that pain fibers from internal organs enter the spinal cord at the same location as sensory fibers from the skin. Apparently, the brain misinterprets the visceral pain messages as impulses from the body’s surface.
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8. Gate-Control Theory
Melzak and Wall (1965, 1983) proposed that our spinal cord contains neurological “gates” that either block pain or allow it to be sensed.
One way to treat chronic pain is to stimulate it through massage by electrical stimulation or acupuncture. Rubbing causes competitive stimulation to pain thus reduces its effect.
Gary Comer/ PhototakeUSA.com
Psychology 7e in Modules

9. Types of Pain
Warning System: Pain carried by large nerve fibers; sharp, bright, fast pain that tells you body damage may be occurring (e.g., knife cut)
Reminding System: Small Nerve Fibers: Slower, nagging, aching, widespread; gets worse if stimulus is repeated; reminds system that body has been injured
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10. Pain Control
Pain can be controlled by a number of therapies including, drugs, surgery, acupuncture, exercise, hypnosis and even thought distraction.
Burn victims can be distracted by allowing them to engage in illusory virtual reality. Their brain scans show differences in pain perceptions.
Todd Richards and Aric Vills, U.W.
©Hunter Hoffman,
Psychology 7e in Modules

11. How do we taste? What is the central muscle involved in taste?
Taste (and smell) are chemical senses.
What is the central muscle involved in taste?

12. Tongue

13. Papillae Those bumps on our tongue are called Papillae.
Papillae help grip food while your teeth are chewing. They also have another special job - they contain your taste buds

14. Taste Buds
Map out the tongue

15. Taste
Traditionally taste sensations consisted of sweet, salty, sour and bitter tastes. Recently receptors for a fifth taste have been discovered called “Umami”.
OBJECTIVE 15-3| Describe the sense of taste, and explain the principle of sensory interaction.
Sweet
Sour
Salty
Bitter
Umami
(Fresh
Chicken)
Psychology 7e in Modules

16. PTC Strips

17. Taste
Taste cells absorb chemicals in saliva and trigger neural impulses routed through the thalamus.
Taste preferences are largely learned and heavily shaped by social processes.
Sensitivity to tastes are distributed somewhat unevenly across the tongue, but the variations are small.

18. Sensory Interaction
When one sense affects another sense sensory interaction takes place. So the taste of strawberry interacts with its smell and its texture on the tongue to produce flavor.

19. Smell and Taste Olfaction: Sense of smell
Anosmia: Defective sense of smell for a single odor
Taste Buds: Taste-receptor cells
Gustation: Sense of taste
Four Taste Sensations: sweet, salt, sour, bitter
Most sensitive to bitter, least sensitive to sweet
Umami: Possible fifth taste sensation; brothy taste
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20. Smell
Like taste smell is a chemical sense. Odorants enter the nasal cavity to stimulate 5 millions receptors to sense smell. Unlike taste there are many different forms of smells.
OBJECTIVE 15-4| Describe the sense of smell and explain why specific odors so easily trigger memories.
Psychology 7e in Modules

22. Age, Gender and Smell
Ability to identify smell peaks during early adulthood but steadily decline after that. Women are better at detecting odors than men.
Psychology 7e in Modules

23. Smell and Memories
Brain region (red) for smell is closely connected with brain regions (limbic system) involved with memory, that is why strong memories are made through the sense of smell.
Psychology 7e in Modules

24. Gender related odors Can you smell the difference between?
Hands, Breath, Shirts

25. So can we smell the difference?
Well….yes and no.
Pheromones
Chemical messengers that are picked up through our sense of smell.
Founded in the early 1930’s by studying silkworms.
Jury is still out on whether they exist in humans. Best evidence we have comes out of the university of Chicago.

26. Body Position and Movement
The sense of our body parts’ position and movement is called kinesthesis. And the vestibular sense monitors the head (and body’s) position.
OBJECTIVE 15-5| Distinguish between kinesthesis and vestibular sense.
Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works
Whirling Dervishes
Wire Walk
Psychology 7e in Modules

27. Kinesthetic Sense Tells us where our body parts are.
Receptors located in our muscles and joints.
Without the kinesthetic sense you could not touch the button to make copies of your buttocks.

28. Vestibular System
Otolith Organs: Sensitive to movement, acceleration, and gravity
Semicircular Canals: Fluid-filled tubes in ears that are sensory organs for balance
Crista: “Float” that detects movement in semicircular canals
Ampulla: A wider part of the canal
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29. Fig. 5.30 The vestibular system.
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30. Fig Hold a variety of elongated objects upright between your fingertips. Close your eyes and move each object about. Your ability to estimate the size, length, shape, and orientation of each object will be quite accurate. (after Turvey, 1996)
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31. Vestibular Sense
Semicircular canals and the vestibular sacs, which connect the canals with the cochlea.
Contain fluid that moves when the head rotates or tilts.
Sends messages to the cerebellum at the back of your brain
Enables you to sense your body position and to maintain your balance.

32. Vestibular Sense Tells us where our body is oriented in space.
Our sense of balance.
Located in our semicircular canals in our ears.

33. Vestibular System and Motion Sickness
Motion sickness is directly related to vestibular system
Sensory Conflict Theory: Motion sickness occurs because vestibular system sensations do not match sensations from the eyes and body
After spinning and stopping, fluid in semicircular canals is still spinning, but head is not
Mismatch leads to sickness
Medications, relaxation, and lying down might help
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