Lorenzo Miguel B.

Bautista // BSN-1M
Anatomy & Physiology Report
“Special Senses”

What are The Special Senses?

Humans require the ability to utilize their special senses in order to complete tasks in
everyday life. So, what exactly are Special Senses? The Special Senses are what we know as the
“traditional” senses. These senses are smell, taste, sight, and hearing, along with a fifth special
sense, known as equilibrium, also known as “balance”. The Special Senses are how we
respond to stimuli in our environment; they respond through vision, hearing, balance, smell,
and taste. The brain takes what is received by the complex sensory organs and sensory
receptors (that are specialized for different senses) and processing the information in order to
make a response, resulting in a “Sense”; an example of the taste buds located on the tongue to
produce what we know as “Taste”. Without our special senses, we could not perform many of
our daily tasks, ranging from the basic act of eating food or even listening to music.

Smell (also known as “Olfaction) is a sense that responds to the molecules produced
by an odor of a stimulus. The sensory receptors send signals to the brain indicating what we
smell from the stimulus. Taste is our ability to detect how a certain substance, for lack of a
better word, “tastes”. Sight (also known as vision) is the sense that sends signals to the brain
after responding to, focusing on, and detecting visible light through its specialized sensory
receptors, resulting in the production of images. Hearing is the reception of audition in the
environment and perceived as sounds by our Brain, creating what is known as “Hearing”.
Equilibrium is a sense that humans use to maintain our balance. The receptors responsible for
this sense are located in the ears and they receive the stimulus of the head’s movement and
send signals to the brain on the position of the head in space, resulting in the response on how
the rest of the body will balance.
How are The Special Senses produced?

Each special sense utilizes different sensory receptors (olfactory receptors, and
complex sensory organs in order to respond to a specific stimulus or other stimuli in the
environment. They are then perceived and interpreted by the brain after the receptor sends its
signal to the brain. Sensory receptors are where the process of sensation begins. Sensory
receptors are either a specialized cell or the dendrites of a sensory neuron. They are
responsible for receiving and distinguishing (as each sensory receptor responds to a specific
and different stimulus) stimuli and transducing (conversion) the stimulus (converting energy in
the stimulus into a graded potential) and passing it along to the threshold of the specific type
of sensory neuron. From there, the sensory neurons generate nerve impulses that are sent to
the brain. The brain then processes the sensory nerve impulse and perceives the stimulus into
one of the special senses.

The importance of the Special Senses and their use in everyday life

Simply put, without Special Senses, how would humans even know if they are alive or
not? Humans would just be organic masses sitting in space without purpose. The senses, and
especially Special Senses, allow humans to identify changes in the environment (stimuli) and
act upon them (perception). The senses allow us to do things like enjoying a meal (taste), listen
to our favorite music and respond to sounds in the environment (hearing), smell things that
have pleasant aroma or things with a foul odor (smell), see the beauty of the world and
everyday life with our own eyes (sight/vision), and have the ability to balance while moving
(equilibrium) making our lives easier when we need to get around to other places. Losing one of
these senses can prove to be a major disability in the body’s ability to function normally, with
two predominant examples of blindness and loss of hearing. Because of the Special Senses,
Humans can respond and survive in the world.