3 Human Senses Nobody Talks About!

Vision, Touch, Hearing, Taste, Smell... Those are the 5 human senses, right? That's what we're taught in school and what most people believe.

But actually, we have more!

This is the definition of the word "sense" in the Oxford Dictionary:

SENSE -  A faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus;  one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

Only those 5 senses are listed. But if the only condition is that "the body perceives an external stimulus", then Scientists have come up with many more senses that we actually have. I will go over the major 3 in detail:

Thermoception - The sense of recognizing temperature 

This seems so obvious and simple, yet it's rarely acknowledged! Of course we can't only tell how something feels, but also how hot or cold it is.  
Although some might say this belongs to the sense of touch, anatomically the receptors that sense temperature are totally different from those that only measure the pressure on our skin.

Thermoception also plays an important factor in taste, so it applies to different senses.
Another interesting fact is that sometimes when we eat something minty or brush our teeth, our mouth feels cold. And when we eat spicy flavours, our mouth feels hot - regardless of the actual temperature. That's because we have hot and cold receptors, and certain foods activate only one kind.

But we don't only have thermoreceptors on our skin - we have them inside our body as well, to measure the inner body temperature and keep it at an optimum, to make sure all the processes inside can function properly.

Proprioception - The sense of knowing where your body is located

If I'd tell you to touch your knee while having your eyes closed - that wouldn't be a problem, right?  
This means that you knew the location of your knee, and you also knew where your finger ended.
This is the awareness of where our body parts are located, in relation to the environment and to your own body  - called Proprioception.
This is only possible because certain receptors in our muscles inform the brain about the muscle's stretch and length.

Without proprioception, we wouldn't be able to walk without constantly looking at our feet, or catch something without looking at our own hands.

Equilibrioception - The sense of balance

The vestibular system in our inner ear is filled with fluid and makes it possible for us to stay in balance.
Also, if you closed your eyes and I would stretch your leg out and bring your body out of balance, you would immediately feel the difference. 

Equilibrioception is linked with our sense of vision - for example, we get motion sick when our eyes think we are moving, but the vestibular system in our ear tells us we're not.
So there's a contradiction, which makes us feel nauseous. 

This also makes it possible for us to cancel out our own body's motions - for example when you you shake your head while reading something, it will still be relatively easy for you to follow the letters.

Images: (1), (2), (3), (4)

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