INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION SLIDES

FOR INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY

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4 The Body Senses

7 Touch Sensors
8 Pain
10 Biopsychosocial Approach to Pain
11 Taste Sensations
16 Smell

19 Synesthesia

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Table of Contents

Fact or Falsehood?
Touching adjacent cold and pressure spots
triggers a sense of wetness.

true

People who are born without the ability to feel

pain my die by early adulthood.

true

Closing ones eyes and thinking a happy thought

is not a suitable means of pain control.

false

Without their smells, a cold cup of coffee may be

hard to distinguish from a glass of red wine.

true

A drinks strawberry odor enhances our

perception of its sweetness.

true

Kinesthesis
Position and
movement of the
parts of your body

Vestibular sense
balance; sensing
the orientation of
your head/body in
space

Touch
pressure, warmth,
cold, and pain

The
Body
Senses

Proprioception
information
about body
position

Photo credits, left to right: Thinkstock; Thinkstock; MICHAL CIZEK/ AFP/ Getty Images

Losing One's Touch: Living Without

Proprioception

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Video Review

What is the nature of Ians difficulty?

How well is his vestibular sense working?
How well is his kinesthetic sense working?
If neither sense is working, what is the
problem? How is he adjusting to this
difficulty?

Thinkstock

Tickle

Thinkstock

Itch

Touch Sensors
Wet

Searing hot

Liquid Library

Thinkstock

Pain Unpleasant sensory or emotional experience

Warns us about actual or potential tissue damage

C fibers
transmit longer
lasting, duller pain
A-delta fibers
fast acting, transmit
sharp pain
Nociceptors
pain receptors

Getty Images

Wouldnt it be better to
live without this sense?
What is the value of
having pain?

Can we block pain?

How did Aron Ralston get
through amputating his arm?
One possible answer is the
Gate Control Theory: The
spinal cord contains a
neurological gate that

Blocks pain signals via

larger fibers
Allows pain signals to pass
to the brain through small
nerve fibers
AP Photo/ Rocky Mountain News, Judy Walgren

Biopsychosocial Approach to Pain

Photo credits, clockwise from top left: Barros and Barros / Getty Images; Claudia Paulussen / Shutterstock; Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

Taste Sensations

Bitter

Sweet

Umami
(savoriness)
Sour

Photo credits: Sweet: Danilo Calilung/Corbis; Sour: Getty Images; Umami: Thinkstock; Bitter: Thinkstock: Salty: Getty Images

Salty

Survival
Functions?

Bitter

Sweet
energy source

Sour
potentially
toxic acid

Umami
(savoriness)
proteins to
grow and
repair tissue

Photo credits: Sweet: Danilo Calilung/Corbis; Sour: Getty Images; Umami: Thinkstock; Bitter: Thinkstock: Salty: Getty Images

potential
poisons

Salty
sodium essential
to physiological
processes

Thinkstock

Are we all supertasters?

The taste system
The human mouth contains
about 5,000-10,000 taste
buds evenly distributed
over the mouth and tongue.
Each taste bud includes
50-100 taste receptor cells.
The old tongue maps are
a myth: all five tastes can
be sensed by receptors all
over the tongue.

Smell (Olfaction)
Airborne odor molecules
are inhaled through the
nose

Olfactory receptor
cells in the nasal
cavity are stimulated
Receptor cells
stimulation converted
to neural signals to
olfactory bulb

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Olfactory Neural
Pathways
Olfactory neurons are
the ONLY neurons that
directly link the brain to
the outside world
Connect to temporal
lobe part of neural
pathway involved in
conscious recognition
of smells
Structures in the limbic
system that regulate
emotional reactions to
smells

Hearing colors

Is this loud?

NeS tHE sI

The perceptual experience of

one sense is evoked by the
sensation of another.

Tasting words
Seeing

certain letters
or numbers in
color
Thinkstock

Tischenko Irina / Shutterstock

Synesthesia: The Man Who Tastes Words

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Video Review
Do you think James would choose to be free of
his synesthesia?
Would you like to experience synesthesia? Why
or why not?
How might a biopsychosocial perspective be
important in understanding this phenomenon?