Answer: Not only five.

I clearly remember my biology teacher, quizzing us about senses on a torrid June afternoon. We were asked to list them, and the class was surprised to learn there were only five of them since the blackboard was full of indistinguishable chalk scribbles. It turns out we were not completely off track.

Senses are internal or external stimuli which help us understand and react to the world around us. Indeed they give us information about the environment we are in and help us make decisions and take actions, possibly to safeguard ourselves. Internal senses (known as interoceptive senses) are senses that perceive sensations in internal organs. These are senses related to your ability to sense what is going on in your body. External (exteroceptive senses) are senses that perceive the body’s position, motion and state and are related to your perception of the world.

The classical five senses are sight (ophthalmoception), hearing (audioception), smell (olfacoception), taste (gustaoception), and touch (tactioception). Imagine how dull (and hard) life would be without these!

But some neuroscientists estimate we have up to 20 senses. These include the ability to know your body position (proprioception). This is why you can scratch your feet without looking at your hand (or feet). Equilibrium gives you your sense of balance. Others are senses of pain, temperature (without touching), hunger (and thirst) and sensing the passage of time (chronoception). Some animals have additional senses like magnetoception (e.g. birds can sense magnetic fields) and echolocation (e.g. bats can determine the location of things based on reflected sound).

And of course, there is my wife’s sixth sense, with which she can tell when I have been to the pub after work!

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