Do The Senses Perceive Sensory Information?

The senses transmit sensory information’s, in the form of electrochemical impulses, to the brain. Different forms of energy stimulate the sensory receptors – the nerve endings and cells that detect sensory information. The sensory receptors then initiate neural impulses. Sensation occurs when the neural impulses arrive at the cerebral cortex. Neural impulses that begin in the optic nerve are sent to the visual areas of the cerebral cortex, and we see objects. Each person’s unique perception results from how the cerebral cortex interprets the meaning of the sensory information.

Sensory adaptation: brain filters out redundant, insignificant information. Example: when you no longer the ticking of a clock or the feel of clothes on your skin.
Damaged to particular sensory receptors such as photoreceptors can result in the loss of the associated sense.

**Artificial Eye: includes a digital video camera that is mounted on glassed. The camera captures imaged and send them to a small computer on a belt worn by a person who is visually impaired. The images are processed and send to several electrodes that are implanted in the visual cortex, thus bypassing the damaged light receptors in the eye.

Photoreceptors: vision – rods and cones in the eye – detects visible light
Chemoreceptors: taste – Taste buds on tongue – food particles in saliva Smell – olfactory receptors in nose – odor molecules
Internal Senses: osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus (low blood volume) receptors in the carotid artery and aorta (blood pH)
Mechanoreceptors: touch pressure pain – receptors in the skin – mechanical pressure Hearing – hair cells in the inner ear – sound waves Balance – hair cells in inner ear – fluid movement Body Position: proprioceptors in the muscles and tendons and at the joints – muscles contraction, stretching, and movement
Thermoreceptors: temperature – heat and cold receptors in the skin – change in radiant
A rod can be stimulated by a single photon of light. They do not enable us to distinguish colors. Rods also detect motion and are responsible for the peripheral vision. Rods are spread out throughout the retina but are more concentrated in the outside edges.
The cones are the color-detecting sensors of the eye. They are packed most densely at the fovea centralis at the back and center of the retina. Cones require relatively intense light to stimulate them, thus the structures of the eye must focus light onto the fovea centralis in order to produce a sharp image.
There are three types of cones and each absorbs a different wavelength of light. The combination of cones that can detect red, blue, and green wavelengths of light allows us to see a range of colors. Color blindness is an inherited condition that occurs more frequently in males than in females. Color blindness is actual color deficiency, because it is caused by a lack or deficiency in particular cones, usually red or green