Classification of sensations in psychology
The most ancient classification of sensations is its division into 5 points (according to the number of sense organs):
- taste,
- sense of smell,
- touch,
- hearing,
- vision.
The English physiologist C. Sherrington systematically classified them. The first level contains 3 main types:
- proprioceptive,
- interoceptive,
- exteroceptive
Proprioceptive send signals about the position of the body in general space and, in particular, the musculoskeletal system. Interoceptive are responsible for signals transmitted to the brain from internal organs, and exteroceptive are responsible for receiving external signals.
How do sensations arise?
Human sensations arise only when a certain stimulus appears. It is worth noting that exerting a certain effect on the receptor can lead to the appearance of an irritant. It transforms all processes into nervous excitation, which is transmitted to the central parts of the analyzer.
At this moment, a person can sense taste, light, and many other factors. In this case, the body should respond to a particular stimulus. It is transmitted from the brain to the sensory organs using the centrifugal nerve. A person can move his own gaze and perform many other actions every second, perceiving irritating signals.
Proprioceptive sensations
Responsible for transmitting signals about the position of the body in space and include the following sensations:
- equilibrium (static),
- motor (kinesthetic).
Receptors of this sensitivity group are located in muscles and joints (ligaments, tendons). They are called Paccini bodies.
Feelings of balance
They characterize the position that a body occupies in space. They are given to us by an organ located in the inner ear. Peripheral receptors are located in the semicircular canals of the inner ear (vestibular apparatus), similar to a cochlea shell and called the labyrinth. The organs of balance are closely interconnected with other internal organs . Their severe overexcitation leads to nausea and vomiting (the so-called seasickness or air sickness). Thanks to regular training, the stability of the balance organs greatly increases. The vestibular system transmits signals about movements and positions of the head. If the labyrinth is damaged, a person can neither sit, nor stand, much less walk.
Motor (kinesthetic)
These are sensations of the position and movement of body parts. Thanks to the activity of the motor analyzer, a person gains the opportunity to coordinate and control his movements. Receptors of motor sensations are located in tendons and muscles, in the fingers, lips and tongue, since it is these organs that carry out precise and subtle working and speech movements .
The development of kinesthetic sensations is one of the most important tasks of learning. Lessons in physical education, labor, drawing, reading, drawing must be planned taking into account the capabilities and prospects for the development of the motor analyzer. Movement development and mastery are the key to educational and work activities. When learning a foreign language, it is necessary to develop speech-motor movements that are uncharacteristic of the Russian language.
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.
Interoceptive sensations
It turns out that in psychology this is the oldest and most elementary group. Internal receptors perceive information and transmit signals about the state of organs.
Interoceptive sensations include organic ones. These are different names with the same meaning.
As already mentioned, organic sensations, or rather, internal receptors signal the functioning of the body , internal organs - the stomach, esophagus, intestines and others; special receptors are located in their walls. If a person is healthy and well-fed, then he will not experience any organic sensations. It will only be felt when a violation of any organ occurs. For example, a person has taken food that is not very fresh, then, accordingly, the functioning of his stomach may be disrupted and then he will certainly feel it, because pain will appear in the abdomen.
Thirst, hunger, pain, nausea, sensations related to the work of the heart, respiratory organs, etc. - they are all organic. Their presence helps to find out about the disease in time and makes it possible to improve health in time.
Psychology tastes. How our condition affects taste preferences
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When the refrigerator door is opened 70% more often than the front door, it's worth understanding how food and psychology are connected. Everyone knows about “stress eating” , an adaptive mechanism that originated in childhood of rewarding achievements with something tasty, snacking out of boredom, and also that food is the easiest way to please yourself!
It’s more interesting to figure out why we want herring with black bread right now, but tomorrow we’re ready to risk our health and go to the store for ice cream with salted caramel. There are several reasons: a viral idea, we saw it on TV and immediately wanted it, a pattern from childhood, when everything was fine and mom fried potatoes - now a frying pan with potatoes “like then” can give us not only calories, but also the state of “I’m fine” and Finally, when the body lacks certain microelements, it gives signals.
There are other explanations, less romanticized - intestinal microbiota and genes; passing a genetic test can reveal (including) the characteristics of taste sensations. Three indicators are considered: sensitivity to sweet, fatty or bitter tastes (can be high, medium and low). If your sensitivity to sweets is high, then you are not inclined to eat a lot of sugar, and conversely, with low sensitivity to bitters, people are able to get more natural antioxidants from food, since they do not feel the bitterness of broccoli or radishes, for example. There is also an indicator that shows whether the risk of eating fat is increased or decreased and what risks each option carries. All this ultimately affects a person’s taste in food, and these are only physiological factors, let’s talk about psychology.
Rescue services have a method that they use in critical situations: the person is asked to assume the fetal position and given condensed milk in a bottle, thereby creating a childlike feeling of safety. That is, when we are scared, sad, ill, or in a severe crisis, we choose glucose (in Russia, the sweet taste dominates, this is due to the feeding habits of infants). Another facet of psychological or physical regression is the choice of creamy textures or dairy products. If at a restaurant a guest places an order consisting of cream soup and mashed potatoes, then with a high probability he will choose panna cotta, mousse or cheesecake for dessert. This means that the energy saving mode is turned on, and there is no strength to even perceive solid textures to taste. Milk and dairy products are also products of decline; they emotionally take us back to childhood and help us gain resilience. Another archetypal product is bread; it is not for nothing that it has a biblical meaning and symbolizes prosperity; the smell of a freshly baked loaf takes us to the plane of “There are enough resources. We can handle it . If a person loves bread very much, he lacks stability and a fulcrum in his life. You can learn more about this part of psychological knowledge from hedonistic psychologist Oksana Spivakovskaya
Breakfasts, lunches and dinners are now the main events of the day, and their menu is the main agenda; to strengthen yourself psychologically, choose tangerines and oranges (vitamin C and natural antidepressants), cinnamon and vanilla (libido activation), cereals and grains (energy, composure) and dark chocolate. We can’t live without natural endorphins now! So let's eat and win!
Exteroceptive sensations
Responsible for signals from the outside world . They are divided into:
- distant (vision, smell and hearing)
- contact (touch and taste),
First, let's look at distant sensations.
Visual sensations
This type covers the sensations of color and light. Every object we see has color. Objects can be transparent and a person cannot see them; this kind of object is colorless. There are achromatic colors (black and white), as well as shades of gray intermediate between these colors) and chromatic (various shades of yellow, red, blue, green).
Light rays (electromagnetic waves) impact the sensitive part of the eye, resulting in visual sensations. The retina is the light-sensitive organ of the eye. It contains cones and rods, which are so named because of their external shape. There are a huge number of them in the retina - about 7 million cones and 130 million rods.
Cones are active only in daylight (such light is too bright for rods). Therefore, a person sees colors, while experiencing all the colors of the spectrum (chromatic colors). At dusk, in fairly dim lighting, the cones, for which there is not enough light, stop working, and instead of them, the rods take over, and a person can distinguish mainly (all shades from white to black are achromatic colors).
Color has different effects on a person’s performance and well-being, and on the effectiveness of their studies. Psychology says that the most acceptable colors for painting walls in educational institutions are yellow-orange and green. The first color creates a cheerful and upbeat mood, while the second creates an even and calm mood. Red tones excite, dark blue depresses, and both tire the eyes.
Normal color perception may be impaired. This occurs in people suffering due to poor heredity, diseases and eye injuries. Color blindness (red-green blindness), named after D. Dalton, the English scientist who first described this disease, is common. People suffering from this disease do not distinguish between green and red colors and do not understand why others call one color in two words. Colorblind people cannot be pilots, drivers, fashion designers, painters, fashion designers, etc. There are rare cases where a healthy person lacks sensitivity to chromatic colors. A person sees worse as the proportion of light decreases.
That is why it is undesirable to read at dusk, in poor lighting, so as not to strain your eyes too much. This can damage vision and develop myopia, especially in schoolchildren and children.
Olfactory sensations
The sense of smell is the ability to sense smells. The olfactory organs are located deep in the nasal cavity and are special sensitive cells. Particles of substances enter the nose when inhaling air - this is how olfactory sensations arise. In a healthy person, these sensations do not play the most significant role . But people who are deaf-blind use their sense of smell, just as sighted people use sight and hearing: with the help of smells they recognize familiar places, familiar and close people.
The human sense of smell is closely related to the sense of taste and helps assess the quality of food. Olfactory sensations signal a person about a harmful and hazardous air environment (smell of burning, gas). Incense has a great influence on the emotional mood. That is why the perfume industry exists, because people have an aesthetic need for pleasant smells.
Auditory sensations
Appear thanks to the organ of hearing. Auditory sensations are divided into 3 types: musical, speech and noise. In these three types, the sound analyzer identifies four parameters: sound strength (weak-loud), pitch (low-high), sound duration, timbre (the uniqueness of the instrument or voice). Also distinguished are the features of tempo and rhythm of sequentially perceived sounds.
Phonemic hearing is responsible for the synthesis and analysis of phonemes, sounds of parts of speech. This is a necessary basis for understanding the meaning of what you hear. It is formed based on the speech environment in which the child grows up. When mastering a foreign language, a new system of phonemic hearing is observed. The latter, by the way, greatly influences written speech and its literacy, most often in elementary school. Just like a child’s ear for speech, a child’s musical ear is formed and nurtured. In this case, the child’s early introduction to music .
Due to exposure to noise, a person’s emotional state may change (the sound of falling rain, the howl of a strong wind, the rustling of leaves). They can serve as a signal of impending danger (the loud barking of a dog, the hissing of a snake, the roar of a rushing train) or a signal of joy and admiration (the thunder of fireworks, applause, the stomping of a child’s feet). At school, noise most often has a negative effect: it causes fatigue of the human nervous system.
Now let's look at contact sensations.
Tactile sensations
It is a combination of motor and skin sensations when feeling objects, when touching a moving hand . For a small child, one of the most important ways to obtain information about the objects around him is touch, feeling objects.
The sense of touch for people deprived of vision is one of the most important means of cognition and orientation. With prolonged practice, great perfection is achieved. These people can sew, cook, thread a needle, design something simple, and sculpt.
Taste sensations
They are formed with the help of receptors located on the back wall of the pharynx, tonsils, soft palate, epiglottis, but the largest number of them are found on the surface of the tongue. There are 4 types of basic tastes: bitter, sweet, salty, sour. A variety of tastes is formed by combining: sweet-sour, bitter-salty, etc. Within the range of sour, salty, bitter, sweet, many shades arise that give variety.
A person’s taste sensations depend on whether the person is hungry, because in a state of hunger, even tasteless food becomes tasty. They are highly dependent on the olfactory senses. The tip of the tongue is where a person tastes sweets most strongly. The edges of the tongue are sensitive to sour, and the base is sensitive to bitter.
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.
Intermodal sensations
In psychology, this type was separated from others, because it cannot be associated with any specific modality. This includes vibration sensitivity, which integrates auditory and tactile-motor sensations. Vibration sensations characterize vibrations of an elastic medium. A person experiences them, for example, by touching a railway rail, which vibrates under the influence of an approaching train.
Vibration sensations in humans, as a rule, are very poorly developed and therefore do not play a special role. But at the same time, for many deaf people they can partially replace hearing, thus achieving images of a very high level of development. According to L. E. Komendantov, tactile-vibration sensitivity is one of the forms of sound perception.
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.
