Psychology
Skin Senses
Skin senses refer to the sensory information received from the skin, including touch, pressure, temperature, and pain. These senses are crucial for perceiving and interacting with the external environment. The skin contains specialized receptors that detect different types of stimuli and transmit signals to the brain, contributing to our overall sensory experience and perception of the world around us.
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10 Key excerpts on "Skin Senses"
eBook - PDF- E. Goldstein, James Brockmole(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Ian’s problems were caused by a breakdown of his somatosensory system, which includes (1) the cutaneous senses, which are responsible for perceptions such as touch and pain that are usually caused by stimulation of the skin; (2) proprioception, the ability to sense the position of the body and limbs; and (3) kinesthesis, the ability to sense the move- ment of the body and limbs. In this chapter we will focus on the cutaneous senses, which are important not only for activi- ties like grasping objects and protecting against damage to the skin, but also for motivating sexual activity (another reason picking touch as the sense to lose would be a mistake). When we recognize that the perceptions we experience through our skin are crucial for carrying out everyday activi- ties, protecting ourselves from injury, and motivating sexual activity, we can see that these perceptions are crucial to our sur- vival and to the survival of our species. In fact, we could make a good case for the idea that perceptions felt through the skin and that enable us to sense the positions and movements of our limbs are more important for survival than those provided by vision and hearing. The title of this chapter is “The Cutaneous Senses,” and because cutaneous refers to the skin, we could take this title to mean that there are a number of different senses associated with the skin. We will simply note that we experience a number of different qualities due to stimulation of the skin. Among them are touch, vibration, tickle, and pain. We begin our discussion of the cuta- neous senses by first describing the anatomy of the cutaneous system and then focusing on the sense of touch, which enables us to perceive properties of surfaces and objects such as de- tails, vibrations, texture, and shape. In the second half of the chapter, we will focus on the perception of pain.
eBook - ePub- Hugh J. Foley(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 12 The Skin Senses- The Skin
- Receptors in the Skin
- From the Skin to the Brain
- Touch
- Afferent Systems for Touch
- Passive Touch
- Active Touch
- Interactions between Touch and Other Senses
- Temperature
- Afferent Systems for Temperature
- Thresholds for Temperature
- Adapting to Temperature
- Pain
- Afferent Systems for Pain and Gate-Control Theory
- ● IN-DEPTH: Phantom Limbs and Pain
- Measuring Pain
- Adapting to Pain
- Controlling Pain
- Kinesthetic and Vestibular Senses
- Kinesthetic Sense
- Vestibular Sense
In elementary school, your teacher might have told you about the five senses: vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Aristotle used this classification system more than 2300 years ago, and it is probably still the most common one. However, it’s clear that we rely on more than five senses. In this chapter, we’ll explore a set of senses embedded in our bodies, collectively called the somatosensory system (from the Latin and Greek soma meaning “body”).The somatosensory system has three separate systems that interact with one another (Pinel, 2006 ). We’ll ignore one system, which monitors your body’s internal states. We’ll focus primarily on another system, which interprets the impact of the outside world on your body. This system provides you with touch, temperature perception, and pain perception. Finally, we’ll consider the system that informs you about whether you are standing upright or tilted and where your body parts are in relation to each other. That somatosensory system is augmented by information from the vestibular system of the inner ear, which we first mentioned in Chapter 9 .The Skin
Your skin represents the largest sensory system you own, with a surface area of about 2 square yards in adults (Weisenberger, 2001
- Stephen F. Davis, William Buskist, Stephen F. Davis, William F. Buskist(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
237 26 S OMATOSENSORY S YSTEMS S HARON E. G UTTMAN Middle Tennessee State University S TEPHEN F. D AVIS Texas Wesleyan University T he somatosensory systems receive and process somatic, or bodily, information. Like all the other senses (vision, hearing, taste, and smell), the somatosensory systems reveal qualities of stimuli present in the external world ( exteroceptive information). However, the somatosensory systems play an additional role, unique among their counterparts: They provide interoceptive information—data regarding internal conditions, such as core temperature and internal pain. As this discussion implies, somatosensation involves the operation of several distinct systems. In this chapter, we discuss several of these systems, including touch, pain, proprioception (i.e., information about bodily position), and temperature regulation. As you read further, however, keep in mind that these systems, though distinct, interact with one another. Together, the various somatosensory systems offer a rich description regarding states of both the internal and external environments. TOUCH If you are like most individuals, you are acutely aware of the importance of your vision and hearing for everyday life—the thought of blindness or deafness is devastating. But when is the last time you considered the importance of your sense of touch? Upon awakening in a dark room in the middle of the night, your awareness of your surround-ings depends primarily on tactile sensations—the feel of the linens against your skin, or the furry dog underfoot as you attempt to rise from the bed. Imagine finding your ringing cell phone in the bottom of your purse or school-bag in the absence of touch. By the time you searched through the clutter using vision alone, the ringing would have stopped.
eBook - PDF- Siri Carpenter, Karen Huffman(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
The Skin Senses reflect the fact that our skin is sensitive to touch (pressure), temperature, and pain The body senses • Figure 4.10 The body senses tell the brain what it touches and is touched by, how the body is moving, and how the body is oriented. movement of individual body parts. Kinesthetic receptors are found throughout the muscles, joints, and tendons of the body. They tell the brain which muscles are being contracted or relaxed, how our body weight is distributed, where our arms and legs are in relation to the rest of our body, and so on ( Figure 4.10c ). We have more skin receptors for cold than for warmth, and we don’t seem to have any “hot” receptors at all. Instead, our cold receptors detect not only coolness but also extreme temperatures—both hot and cold (Craig & Bushnell, 1994). The vestibular sense is responsible for balance—it in-forms the brain of how the body, and particularly the head, is oriented with respect to gravity and three-dimensional space. When the head moves, liquid in the semicircular ca-nals , located in the inner ear, moves and bends hair cell receptors. At the end of the semicircular canals are the vestibular sacs , which contain hair cells sensitive to the spe-cific angle of the head—straight up and down or tilted. In-formation from the semicircular canals and the vestibular sacs is converted to neural impulses that are then carried to the appropriate section of the brain ( Figure 4.10b ). Kinesthesis is the sense that provides the brain with information about bodily posture, orientation, and 1. Why are our senses of smell and taste called the chemical senses? 2. How are taste and smell important to our survival? 3. How do the vestibular and kinesthetic senses differ? Understanding Perception LEARNING OBJECTIVES e are ready to move from sensation and the major senses to perception, the pro-cess of selecting, organizing, and interpret-ing incoming sensations into useful mental representations of the world.
- Andrew Kuntzman, Gerard J. Tortora(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Most of us are aware of sensory input to the central nervous sys- tem (CNS) from structures associated with smell, taste, vision, hearing, and equilibrium (balance). These five senses are known as the special senses. The other senses are termed general senses and include both somatic senses and visceral senses. Somatic senses (somat- of the body) include tactile sensations (touch, pressure, and vibration); thermal sensations (warm and cold); pain sensations; and proprioceptive sensations ( joint and muscle position and movements of the limbs and head). Each of these senses is considered to be a sensory modality. Visceral senses provide information about conditions within internal or- gans. Each unique type of sensation—such as touch, pain, vi- sion, or hearing—is called a sensory modality (mo ¯-DAL-i-te ¯). Definition of Sensation Sensation is the conscious or subconscious awareness of changes in the external or internal environment. For a sensation to occur, four conditions must be satisfied: 1. A stimulus, or change in the environment, capable of activat- ing certain sensory neurons, must occur. A stimulus that activates a sensory receptor may be in the form of light, heat, pressure, me- chanical energy, or chemical energy. 2. A sensory receptor must convert the stimulus to an electrical signal, which ultimately produces one or more nerve impulses if it is large enough. Most sensory systems are spontaneously ac- tive, and thus the stimuli increase or decrease that activity. 3. The nerve impulses must be conducted along a neural path- way from the sensory receptor to the brain. 4. A region of the brain must receive and integrate the nerve impulses into a sensation. Characteristics of Sensations As you learned in Chapter 15, perception is the conscious awareness and interpretation of sensations and is primarily a function of the cerebral cortex. You seem to see with your eyes, hear with your ears, and feel pain in an injured part of your body.
eBook - PDF- Craig Freudenrich, Gerard J. Tortora(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
sensationCon- scious or subcon- scious awareness of changes in internal or external environment; can occur in all parts of the CNS. perceptionCon- scious awareness and interpretation of sen- sations; occurs only in the cerebral cortex. that detect a change in the body’s internal or external environment. Each receptor is specific to a par- ticular type of sensation. When a receptor is stimulated, it initiates a signal in the associat- ed dendrite, which conducts impulses related to the sensation to the central nervous system (CNS). Somatic sensations include tactile, pain, temperature, and proprioception. Recep- tors for the somatic senses are spread diffusely around the body in structures such as the skin, mucous membranes, muscles, tendons, and joints (Figure 8.1a). Visceral senses have receptors within the walls of the internal organs that detect pain and Somatic Senses Are Related to Detection of Pressure, Chemicals, Proprioception, and Touch 229 Smell Sight Taste c. Special senses Hearing and balance Epidermis Dermis Merkel (tactile) disc senses touch near surface. Meissner corpuscle senses touch near surface. Pacinian corpuscle senses pressure rapidly. Ruffini corpuscle senses stretching in deep layers of skin. Hair root plexus senses movement of the hair. Subcutaneous layer Nociceptors are free nerve endings that sense pain rapidly. Other free nerve endings sense tickle, temperature, itch, and some touch sensations. Somatic sensations are sensed by many types of receptors in the skin • Figure 8.2 changes in blood pressure and chemical levels (Fig- ure 8.1b). Like somatic senses, visceral senses have receptors that are spread throughout the organs of the body. In contrast, the special senses, such as smell, sight, hearing, balance, and taste, have receptors that are localized in the nose, eyes, ears, and mouth (Fig- ure 8.1c).
eBook - PDF- Lawrence Kruger, Morton P. Friedman, Edward C. Carterette(Authors)
- 1996(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
:HAPTE[ History of Research on Touch Joseph C. Stevens Barry G. Green I. INTRODUCTION By touch we refer here primarily to sensations aroused through stimulation of receptors in the skin--pressure, warmth, cold, and various blends of these attributes. It must be pointed out that in the broad sense touch in- cludes more than just these sensations. Two other notable aspects are pain (see chapter 4, this volume, for a separate historical chapter) and sensations aroused by stimulation of receptors deeper within the body, such as in the lining of various internal organs (organic sensibility) and in the muscles and joints (proprioception). When one palpates an object, such as a piece of sandpaper, a tennis ball, or an ice cube, one ordinarily fails to break down the experience into various attributes that simultaneously make up the total, unitary experience of touching. Among the potential attributes are roughness, warmth, cold, pressure, size, location, and weight. The perceived weight of an object can sometimes involve proprioception, but most attributes of touch come about from stimulation of receptors in the skin and just beneath the skin. The more or less unitary character of the touch experience may help to explain why from the time of Aristotle to the middle of the 19th century touch nearly always was classified as one of the five senses. Even Aristotle Pain and Touch Copyright 9 1996 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 2 Joseph C. Stevens and Barry G. Green recognized that touch can have several different attributes, but before the mid-19th century the belief that the skin might house a variety of sense modalities had won only a handful of converts. Among the exceptions was Erasmus Darwin (1796), who posited several senses beside the traditional five.
- Stanislav Stanković(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Springer(Publisher)
In addition to mechanoreceptors, skin is equipped with at least two major classes of ther- moreceptors, corresponding to the increase (heating) or decrease (cooling) of temperature. Ex- treme stimuli, which might cause the physical tissue damage, are detected by a special class of receptors responsible for pain sensation, known as nociceptors. ere are several kinds of these receptors activated by thermal, mechanical, and chemical stimuli. Figure 3.12: Skin cross-section–Henry Vandyke Carter–Henry Gray (1918), Anatomy of the Human Body. 50 3. LECTURE 3–HUMAN SENSES 3.17 SENSE OF PROPRIOCEPTION Sense of proprioception, also known as kinesthesia or muscle sense, is a sense of orientation and position of various body parts, above all limbs, in reference to each other. is sense provides to the brain the information about the result of commands issued to the muscles and as such is an integral part of the motor feedback loop. It is a key part of so-called muscle memory and hand- eye coordination. e sensory system responsible for proprioception relies on two major sources of information. e first one is the human vestibular system. e second source of information comes from specialized receptors situated in joints and muscle tissue, which react to mechanical strain. In terms of human computer interaction, this sense is important as it conveys the information about the effort employed by the movement. It is responsible for perception of the so-called passive force feedback of the input device. Consider the difference of sensation of pressing a key on a physical keyboard and a virtual button on a flat touchscreen. Unlike, for example, the visual sense or the sense of hearing, which are concentrated in a couple of sensory organs, and clearly defined locations on the body, haptic and sense of proprioception are very decentralized, with a multitude of sensory organs dispersed throughout the human body. is fact creates major technological problems for design of VR systems.
eBook - PDF- Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
People who are highly sensitive to odours often find employment that puts their special ability to use. Source: ©Anna Clopet/Corbis. ageusia the inability to taste. anosmia the inability to smell. OUT OF THE O R D I N A R Y CHAPTER 7 PERCEPTION AND THE SENSES 176 FIGURE 7.6 Sensory receptors in the skin. The tactile senses rely on a variety of receptors located in different parts of the skin. Merkel’s disc (light to moderate pressure against skin) Meissner’s corpuscle (light touch) Pacinian corpuscle (vibration) Ruffini’s end organ (heavy pressure and joint movements) Free nerve endings for temperature (heat or cold) Free nerve endings for pain (sharp pain and dull pain) Pain and temperature Fine touch and pressure The Tactile Senses: Touch, Pressure, Pain, Vibration LEARNING OBJECTIVE 3 Describe how the different senses of touch work and what can happen when things go wrong. • Tactile, as we mentioned earlier, means ‘touch’. As with the chemical senses, there are also rewarding and aversive types of tactile stimuli. The pleasure associ- ated with a relaxing back massage or stroking a baby’s cheek contrasts greatly with the discomfort of getting a scrape or burn, for example. The tactile, or somato- sensory, system is actually a complex sense. As shown in Figure 7.6, our skin contains a variety of sensory receptors to register different types of physical stimuli (Johnson, 2002; Munger & Ide, 1988). • Free nerve endings are located mostly near the surface of the skin and function to detect touch, pressure, pain and temperature. • Meissner's corpuscles transduce information about light touch and are found in the hairless (glabrous) regions Before You Go On What Do You Know? 4. What five tastes have specific receptors? 5. Which parts of the brain are involved in sensing and perceiving odours? 6.
eBook - PDFPsychology
Made Simple
- Abraham P. Sperling, Kenneth Martin(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Made Simple(Publisher)
Internal organs, to a much lesser degree, also respond to sensations of touch, pain and temperature. For each type of cutaneous or skin sensation, there are believed to be specialized nerve endings which react to the specific type of stimuli. For example, the application of heat to the skin activates different nerve endings than those which respond to tactile pressure. The sen-sory tracts for impulses of pain, pressure, and temperature follow separate paths through the spinal cord to the brain. Evidence for this dissociation of closely related skin sensitivities is seen in a relatively rare disease called syringomyelia. In this circum-stance, the victim loses sensitivity to heat and cold but retains the sense of touch. Such persons may lean against hot stoves and sustain bad burns without any feeling of discomfort. Sensations of Hot and Cold. Reactions to heat and cold are separate sensations rather than extremes of the same sensation. Different nerve endings in the surface of the skin carry the messages of heat and cold stimuli. This has been demonstrated by mapping actual hot and cold receptor areas on the skin with heated and chilled needle points. There is an odd exception to the separate action of hot and cold receptors on the surface of the skin. Cold spots will respond to the application of intense heat and warm spots will react to an application of intense cold. These reverse sensations are referred to by the psy-chologist as paradoxical cold and paradoxical warmth. They explain the effects of the familiar trick of blindfolding a victim and telling him that he is to be branded with a hot iron while pressing a piece of ice against his back. Often a victim will scream because momentarily he really feels he is being scorched. Another example is that of the youngster who has been playing with snowballs for a half hour and comes into the house crying that his 'hands are burning' when they are really freezing.
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