Man and other living beings with a nervous system have some similarities in the organization of mental activity. They are characterized by such mental processes as a certain type of response to an external stimulus, excitation and inhibition in the nervous system, and the work of analytical systems.
Ability to sense
Apperception is a property that all living beings on the planet possess. It appears during the operation of analyzer systems and receptors. However, feeling cannot be reduced only to the physiological characteristics of living organisms; it also manifests itself at the psychological level.
Types of sensations in psychology
A person perceives information using various organs. Based on this, there are conditions that divide sensations into several types. These include the location of the receptors, the presence or absence of the stimulus and its type, and the time of occurrence. Next, we will consider what types of sensations there are in psychology and their characteristics.
There are three main classes of sensations. The first is interoceptive. It is also called organic. This is due to the fact that this class of sensations is responsible, for example, for the perception of thirst, hunger or pain.
The second type is exteroceptive. Sensations of this class are associated with signals from the surface of the human body.
The third type is proprioceptive. Sensations of this type are taken from the muscles and tendons. They provide information about movement and position of body parts.
In addition to the main ones, there are distant and contact types of sensations in psychology. Visual and auditory perceptions characterize the first group. Gustatory, olfactory and tactile - the second.
It is worth noting that many scientists have examined these types of sensations in psychology. Krutetsky V.A. wrote many works about them and their characteristics.
Below are the main types of sensations in psychology.
The table also shows where the brain's information comes from. This is a classification of types of sensations according to the location of the receptor. Types of sensations based on receptor location
| № | Types of sensations | Where do the signals come from? |
| 1 | Interoreceptive | Internal environment of the body |
| 2 | Exteroceptive | External environment of the body |
| 3 | Proprioceptive | Body position |
As mentioned above, there are other ways to perceive information.
They are classified according to the presence or absence of contact with the stimulus. Let's look at other types of sensations in psychology. The table shows which organs are responsible for the perception of information. Types of sensations based on the presence or absence of contact with the stimulus
| № | Types of sensations | What perceptions relate to them? |
| 1 | Distant | Visual, auditory, olfactory |
| 2 | Contact | Gustatory, skin, kinesthetic |
Taste sensations
We can say with confidence that taste sensations are determined by the various properties of surrounding things.
They do not have a complete or objective classification. If we take into account the main complex of sensations that arise due to taste substances, then we can distinguish several main irritants - these are sour, salty, sweet and bitter foods. The sense of taste often includes the sense of smell, and in some cases may include a response to pressure, heat, cold, or pain. If we talk about caustic, astringent, tart taste qualities, then they are caused by a whole complex of different sensations. Thanks to a complex complex, a person is able to taste the food he eats.
Taste buds are able to express themselves during exposure to different taste areas. It turns out that a single substance has a relatively small molecular weight.
Basic patterns of sensations: sensitivity thresholds
Each of the above groups provides unique information. There are also general patterns that characterize the types of sensations in psychology. These are thresholds of sensitivity, that is, the ability to determine the magnitude and quality of a stimulus. In this case, the smallest dose of the pathogen that causes sensation is usually called the lower absolute threshold of sensitivity.
Thanks to the ability to determine the magnitude and quality of a stimulus, a person can notice both external and internal changes (for example, an increase or decrease in sound, brightness of light, heaviness, and so on).
It is worth noting that this sensitivity threshold is different for each individual. This is due to many factors, but the main one is the degree of training. That is, the magnitude of sensitivity thresholds depends on how often a person experiences certain sensations.
The threshold that is noticed is called differential. With it, changes in the strength and nature of the stimulus are felt. In another way it is called the discrimination threshold.
There is another size of the pathogen. This is the operational threshold. It is achieved when the accuracy and speed of discrimination reach their maximum point.
A time threshold is also identified. This is the duration of the stimulus that is necessary to obtain the sensation.
There is a time period from the giving of a signal to the occurrence of a sensation. This threshold is called latent.
Psychology of perception B. M. Velichkovsky, V. P. Zinchenko, A. R. Luria3. Intermodal sensations and synesthesia
Perceptual systems are formed under the influence of tasks arising in the individual’s activities. Many perceptual tasks require the joint work of several perceptual systems, so intermodal or transitional forms of sensitivity are possible, occupying an intermediate position between traditional modalities.
A typical intermodal sensation is the sensation of vibration. As is known, the human auditory system does not perceive air vibrations with a frequency below twenty hertz. Lower tones are perceived by us as vibrational sensations. This is not accomplished through hearing, as evidenced by the existence of vibration sensitivity in the deaf, but mainly through the musculocutaneous system. For the sensation of vibration to occur, it is important that the irritation is transmitted by bone tissue and spreads over as much of the body as possible. It is believed that this excites the vestibular system, although for it vibration is an inadequate stimulus.
Vibration sensitivity occupies an incomparably smaller place in our perception than touch or hearing. But for people who have lost their hearing, it begins to play a huge role. Vibration sensitivity is even called “hearing of the deaf.” The literature describes cases in which deaf people were able to perceive complex musical works using vibration.
Another example of intermodal sensitivity is the so-called “sixth sense of the blind.” It is known that blind people, from birth or from childhood, are able to detect obstacles at a distance and successfully avoid them. The subjective sensations they experience are very complex. Typically, blind people report that they feel an obstruction on their face. However, most researchers believe that the feeling of obstruction is associated not with skin sensitivity, but with auditory sensitivity. According to this point of view, a blind person is much better at catching this from his steps than a sighted person. Sounds reflected from objects are perceived as landmarks, giving indications of obstacles to which it is approaching. Therefore, the sense of obstacles fails if, instead of a dense wall that reflects sounds well, a barrier in the form of a metal mesh with large cells is placed on the path of the blind.
The development of intermodal sensations, which make it possible to compensate for certain sensory deficiencies, emphasizes the importance that the presence of a specific perceptual task has for the development of perceptual systems. A. N. Leontyev demonstrated the possibility of forming, by creating an active installation in the subject, a completely new type of sensitivity, which was called nonspecific light sensitivity.
In the experiments, the task was to develop sensitivity to color in the subjects through the skin of the palm. The subject sat in front of a black screen. His hand was stuck through the hole in the screen. In turn, through a hole in the board on which the subject’s hand rested, a red or green beam of light was projected onto the palm. The lamp was separated from the palm of the subject by a water filter, so that the stimuli acting on the surface of the skin had exactly the same thermal characteristics and differed only in wavelength.
In the first series of experiments, the subject remained passive, since he was not warned about anything. The experimenter tried to develop in him a conditioned protective reflex to irritation by red light. Stimuli were presented at different intervals in a random order. Thirty seconds after irritating the palm with a red light, the subject received an electric shock and, naturally, withdrew the palm. The green light was not accompanied by reinforcements. It turned out that even after 800-900 combinations the subject could not learn to withdraw his hand in time.
In the second series of experiments, the subject was told that sometimes his palm would be illuminated with red and sometimes green light, and that if, after illuminating his hand with red light, he did not withdraw his hand, he would receive an electric shock. In other words, the subjects were created to actively detect a certain stimulus. Otherwise, the experimental conditions were maintained. The results of this series were amazing. After only forty to fifty combinations, it was possible to develop a conditioned reflex to illuminating the skin with red light, so that the subject withdrew his hand immediately after illuminating the palm with red light and left it in place when illuminated with green light.
The interaction of perceptual systems is determined mainly by the unity of the surrounding world. Indeed, the same object or phenomenon has many different aspects. Their perception is associated with the work of various perceptual systems, the peripheral parts of which have very different characteristics. Nevertheless, we perceive a single holistic image. The interaction of perceptual systems appears very clearly in the case of perception of external space (see p. 157 and p.).
There are numerous facts indicating deep connections between different perceptual systems. We are talking about synesthesia - the occurrence of a sensation of a certain modality under the influence of a stimulus of a completely different modality. The phenomenon of synesthesia can occur in both explicit and implicit forms. In an explicit form, according to a number of studies, synesthesia is observed in approximately 50% of children and 15% of adults. For example, the composer A. N. Scriabin had very vivid synesthesia, who experienced every sound colored in one color or another and even wrote symphonies of color. It can be argued that in an implicit form, synesthesia occurs in everyone. “Warm” and “cold” color tones, “high” and “low” sounds indicate how naturally sensations are sometimes assessed using characteristics borrowed, it would seem, from a completely different modality.
The most universal characteristic in this regard turned out to be “lightness”. The German psychologist E.M. Hornbostel showed in the twenties of our century that not only visual, but also tactile, organic, olfactory and auditory sensations can be light and dark. Thus, the sensations of hunger, touch with a smooth and hard object were assessed as light, and the opposite sensations - satiety, touch with a rough and soft object - as dark. When characterizing unfamiliar odors, the subjects used the same definitions: the smell of perfume seemed light to them, and the smell of tar seemed dark.
To check the reproducibility of the results obtained in this way, E. M. Hornbostel conducted a control experiment. The subjects were given a group of odors and asked, using a color wheel, to select for each of them a gray tone corresponding to the lightness. It turned out that all the subjects placed the smells in approximately the same row, and the smell of benzene corresponded to a color wheel with 40% white. The same odors were then compared to sounds produced by a sound generator. As a result, a correspondence between olfactory and auditory sensations was established, in which the smell of benzene was equated to a sound tone with a frequency of 220 Hz. At the last stage of the experiment, subjects had to compare different sound tones with shades of gray. It turned out that for the tone of 220 hertz a gray color was selected, consisting of 41% white. In other words, it was possible to show the equivalence of assessments of lightness, smell and pitch. Conventionally, this result can be depicted in the form of the following diagram:
No less interesting research was carried out by German biologists W. Bernstein and P. Schiller. In one experiment, fish were trained to always swim to the more illuminated of two feeders. After the development of this conditioned reflex, the lighting of the feeders was equalized, but a substance with a “light” odor was scattered in front of one of them, and a substance with a “dark” (according to the E. M. Hornbostel scale) odor was scattered in front of the other. The fish headed towards the feeder with a “light” smell. Other experiments were carried out with amphibians that change their color depending on the level of light. The results showed that lightening of the color is also caused by “light” olfactory and sound stimuli.
It should be emphasized that synesthesia rarely occurs in a situation of normal object perception. When the perceived situation is uncertain, synesthesia is observed quite often. Soviet researcher L.A. Seletskaya conducted experiments that showed that the conscious selection of synesthetic signs of “warmth” and “coldness” of a color tone when differentiating color cards presented in peripheral vision allows subjects to improve discrimination performance.
Very little is currently known about the mechanisms of synesthesia. The experiments of V. Bernstein, who achieved lightening of the color of dark-adapted fish by injecting them with an extract from the retina of light-adapted fish, indicate that synesthesia may be associated with humoral processes. The biochemical hypothesis of the occurrence of synesthesia is supported by facts about the appearance of synesthesia under the influence of drugs such as mescaline and LSD-25. There is no doubt that synesthesia is associated with genetically early stages of perception.
The entire book PSYCHOLOGY OF PERCEPTION by B. M. VELICHKOVSKY, V. P. ZINCHENKO, A. R. LURIA can be found at the link
Sensations and perception
Various psychological processes occur in a person. These include the main types of sensations in psychology. B they are directly related to a more complex process - perception. It is a more holistic image of objects and phenomena.
There are visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, that is, motor and taste perceptions. They are characterized by the following basic properties: constancy, integrity, meaningfulness, selectivity and apperception.
Constancy is characterized by the stability of perception. That is, in different circumstances, one or another object is represented in one image. For example, from a great height the forest will not appear green, but a skydiver will perceive it that way.
Integrity means that the human imagination depicts any object or phenomenon in full. For example, when communicating with someone remotely, people hear only the voice, but imagine the appearance of the interlocutor.
Meaningfulness implies the following: a person is able to perceive only what he understands.
Selectivity is the selection of some objects from others.
Apperception is a dependence on past experience, a person’s abilities, and his mental state. When the perception of something is influenced by beliefs, this process is called stable apperception.
Quality and intensity of sensations
Empathy - what is it in psychology
Quality and intensity are the main characteristics of the reaction to receptor stimulation. Quality gives the researcher information about how a given receptor reaction differs from other similar reactions. For example, taste sensations are very diverse: a person can accurately distinguish bitter tastes from sweet ones. This or that characteristic of taste depends on the chemical composition of the product; this is what determines the quality of taste sensations.
Additional Information. The quality of sensations is often identified with their modality, since it reflects the main property of a particular analyzer.
The quantitative value of receptor reactions is intensity. It determines the strength of the stimulus and the strength of the receptor. An example of a change in the intensity of impressions is a person’s ability to perceive odors: during a cold accompanied by nasal congestion, it decreases.
Disorders of sensations. Hyperesthesia
Psychological disorders are numerous. And if we talk about sensations, then among them three types of disorders can be distinguished: hyperesthesia, hypoesthesia and paresthesia. Now we will look at them in more detail to understand what these complex terms mean.
What is hyperesthesia? This is a state when a person perceives certain objects and phenomena with increased sensitivity. This term is used when describing certain types of sensations in psychology. With examples it will be easier to understand these disorders. So, in a normal situation, when a person is not sick, he is unlikely to be blinded by an ordinary burning candle. But with nervousness, even a small fire seems impossibly bright. That is, there is a violation of distant sensation (visual perception). Or a person may get annoyed by typing on a keyboard. It will seem simply deafening. In such a situation, a disturbance of distant sensation (auditory perception) is also observed.
Hypoesthesia and paresthesia
The opposite of hyperesthesia is hypoesthesia. It is characterized by reduced sensitivity of the body to irritants. For examples, we use some types of sensations in psychology. Let's say it's severely frosty outside. A person with hypoesthesia will not feel the cold. This could lead to frostbite. That is, his exteroceptive sensations are impaired. If a person is unable to feel pain, for example, from an injection, then interoreceptive sensations are already impaired. There are many reasons for hypoesthesia. For example, anesthesia or skin diseases such as leprosy.
The next type of sensation disorder is called paresthesia. It is characterized by neurological and vascular lesions. This disorder occurs, for example, during sleep, when the whole body is compressed by one hand. Or, when sitting, you may feel numbness in some parts of your body. In such cases, people say that they rested their hand or butt. But this type of disorder can also be more serious, which requires treatment.
The role of sensations
The body’s perception of certain influences is necessary to maintain vital functions and preserve human health.
After all, all types of sensations in psychology help us understand the world and carry out daily procedures. Various sounds warn of danger, give us information about some object, people, phenomena. If we talk about visual perception, then with the help of it we receive 85% of all information.
All types of sensations in psychology convey information to us, and they are extremely important.
