We use them every day, every second of our lives. With their help, we get to know the world around us and only with their help we orient ourselves in it. They warn us of dangers and allow us to enjoy all the delights of life. They made us who we are after all. But most of us often do not know about their possession, at least about a considerable part of them.

Of course, it's about feelings. For the first time, the great ancient Greek thinker Aristotle asked himself the question of human feelings. He came to the conclusion that sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste constitute a complete set of human senses. Until the early 20th century, Aristotle's conclusion was generally accepted and no one doubted it. But it turned out to be wrong.

In fact, the question "How many feelings does a person have?" quite complex and not fully resolved to this day. Scientists, physiologists and physicians cannot reach a consensus in any way and decide on what can be considered a feeling, by what criteria to evaluate them, and most importantly, how to count them. As a result, specialists who adhere to the most conservative point of view count only 3 feelings, and their more radical counterparts will single out more than 30 feelings.

With a strong desire, you can count much more than 30 feelings. For example, taste can be divided into 6 separate senses (tastes of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami (monosodium glutamate) and fat), as a specific group of receptors is responsible for each of them. With vision, the same story, in our eye there are two main groups of receptors: rods that perceive light and determine its intensity; cones that perceive color ... We note only more or less independent feelings

Microscopically magnified photoreceptors in the human eye. The cones are in purple, the rods in grey. There are several types of the first, which gives us color vision, however, in absolute terms, there are many times fewer such cells than light-sensitive rods.

human feelings

According to the most common point of view, each person has 9 senses at his disposal:

• Vision
• Smell
• Touch
• Thermoception - the feeling of warmth and its absence. Organ: skin.
• Equibrioception - a sense of balance, direction of movement and acceleration. Organ: vestibular apparatus. This is part of the inner ear, which contains special cavities filled with fluid. Such an analogue of the building bubble level, equipped with many receptors.
• Nocioception is the feeling of pain. Organs: skin, joints and almost all internal organs.
• Proprioception - awareness of the body, the sensation of its individual parts. Even with your eyes closed, feeling neither cold, nor heat, nor pain, you still know what position your arm or leg is in, after all.

conservative approach

Conservatives distinguish only 3 main senses, basing their approach on the nature of the processes inside the corresponding sense organs:

• chemical (smell and taste)
• mechanical (hearing and touch)
• light (vision)

The new four (feeling of warmth, pain...) is not included here, since these feelings are considered to be constituent parts or, if you like, subtypes of the main three. So nocioception, equibrioception and thermoception, the adherents of this approach refer to the mechanical group and, in particular, to touch, explaining their direct connection with the skin. Equibrioception, according to the principle of its action, also belongs to the mechanical group. Some other feelings, the existence of which is not denied by conservatives, are attributed to the chemical group.

Who is bigger?

And so, we have 9 senses. But is it really a complete set? What about feelings of hunger, thirst, or more delicate urges? These feelings are more than real - you can't argue with their urges, but can they be considered as independent? The sensations of a full bladder and rectum are attributed by many physiologists to internal (interoceptive) touch, but with hunger and thirst everything is much more complicated, their classification is still in question.

Even more interesting is the situation with our internal clock. Of course, they are not so accurate and sometimes let us down a little, but there is no doubt about their existence. The sense of time is unique. It, unlike others, does not have its own receptors and is not connected with the sense organs. Nevertheless, American neurophysiologists believe that they have found a complex system that regulates the perception of time, which affects several parts of the brain at once and consists of several centers (nuclei).

Among other things, there is a rather wide list of so-called unconscious feelings. Each of them has its own system of receptors at its disposal, and the body acts in a certain way when they are activated, but this happens without the participation of consciousness. This includes the pulmonary stretch system, which regulates the respiratory rate; "sensor" of the level of carbon dioxide in the blood; chemoreceptors of the pH level in the cerebrospinal fluid; and etc.

There is still extrasensory perception, which is perceived skeptically by most people and science. However, several experiments with mixed results have been officially documented. In any case, only a few have a sixth sense.

Candies in a box, you can call man's sixth sense.

Thanks to this sense, we can determine how many elements of the same kind are in a place at a given time.

It is known that there are five basic senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste and each of them has its own topographic map in the brain, that is, a map that shows where the neurons that form them are located. Now scientists have found that such a map exists for the perception of quantity.

Sense of quantity different from symbolic numbers. The latter we use to represent quantities or other quantities. When we perceive quantity, we visually process the characteristics of the image.

To better understand what controls our sense of quantity, scientists conducted a study on eight participants. They asked them to look at cards with different numbers of dots. During this experiment, the researchers analyzed the response of neurons using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

As it turned out, there is an anatomical the "quantity sense" center, which is located in the back of the parietal cortex.

Scientists say that this part of the brain, which is responsible for the perception of quantity, works like a sixth sense.

"When we see a small number of elements, we don't need to count them. We immediately know how many there are," explained study author Ben Harvey of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

human feelings

We know the basic five human senses. However, some scientists believe that we have them, at least nine, and some claim that there are more than 21 of them.

By feeling in this case is meant a system of a group of sensory cells that respond to certain physical phenomena and correspond to a certain area of ​​the brain.

Here are the basic and other lesser known human senses:

Five human senses

Vision- in fact, it can be divided into two senses, depending on the type of receptors: color vision (cones), and brightness (rods).

Taste- some believe that taste can be divided into five senses, depending on the taste buds (sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami). Umami determines the taste of the amino acid glutamate, which is present in meat and is used as a flavoring agent.

Touch also considered a separate feeling from pressure, temperature, pain and even itching.

Hearing- the ability to perceive the vibrations of the environment, such as air and water, which are in contact with the eardrums.

Smell- the ability to detect odor.

Other human senses

Thermoception- the ability to feel hot and cold.

proprioception is a sense by which we determine where our body parts are located in relation to other parts of the body. This feeling is tested by the police when they want to know how sober a driver is by conducting a test "close your eyes and touch your nose with your hand." We also use proprioception when we want to scratch our heel without even looking at where it is.

Feeling of tension Tension receptors are located in the muscles and allow the brain to monitor muscle tension.

Nociception- the feeling of pain has a unique sensory system, and is not an overload of other senses.

Sense of balance helps us maintain balance and sense body movements as we accelerate and change direction. With the loss of this feeling, a person ceases to distinguish up from down, and moves with difficulty without outside help.

Thirst- allows our body to monitor the replenishment of fluid loss.

Hunger This system tells us when we need to eat.

magnetoception is the ability to detect magnetic fields in order to know the direction of movement. This sense is well developed in birds and insignificantly in humans.

sense of time- there is a lot of controversy about what helps a person to determine time. However, studies have shown that we have a very precise sense of time, especially in our youth.

Many say that man has five senses which are known to all: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. But is it really so? Of course not! Man has at least four more senses.

The five senses listed above were named by Aristotle. Undoubtedly, he was an outstanding scientist, but he was wrong in some things, and some scientific explanations were simply not subject to him because of the time in which he lived. All the same, science, technology, and the way of thinking is changing, so to answer the question: more modern scientists will help us.

Humans have at least 9 senses

Why at least? Many single out such feelings as intuition, foreboding, or a sense of beauty, but, you see, this is somehow not scientific.

So let's now turn to list of 9 senses:

The first five of the feelings, as you might guess, remained unchanged. It:

1. Vision.

2. Hearing.

3.Taste.

4. Smell.

5. Touch.

They have long been known to everyone, so it makes no sense to stop and describe each of them. But let's talk about the remaining four feelings in more detail.

6. Thermoception- this is a feeling of warmth or lack of it on the skin. After all, a person can feel warmth, but not with the help of the standard five senses.

7. Equibrioception- a sense of balance. This feeling is determined by the fluid-containing cavities in our inner ear.

8. Nociception- the perception of pain. Pain can be felt in the skin, joints, or organs of the body.

By the way, I would like to note one very interesting fact:

this feeling does not include ... the brain! As you know, there are no pain-sensitive receptors in the brain, so headaches, no matter what we think, do not come from within the brain at all.

9. proprioception- body awareness. Well, how can you not highlight this feeling? It is the most real, because we understand where, for example, our leg is located, even if we do not see it.

A little experiment to prove it:

if we try to close our eyes and swing our foot in the air, we will still know where our foot is in relation to other parts of the body, right?

How do you understand these 9 senses only the main ones. And to find out what other feelings can be distinguished in a person, you can ask this question to any good neurologist. Each of them has their own point of view on this issue, and many also highlight such feelings as, for example:

*sense of hunger *sense of thirst *sense of depth *sense of meaning and so on.

And there is also an intriguing synesthesia: when feelings collide, intertwine in such a way that the music begins to be perceived in color!

You can also highlight the feeling of electricity or the feeling of fear (when the hair suddenly begins to stand on end), and of course. The list can be very long.

Now it is clear that the statement: humans have 5 senses, is fundamentally wrong!