There are many different types of emotions that affect how an individual lives and interacts with other people. The choice that a person makes, the actions that he takes, and the perception of the environment, it all depends on them. A special role in perception is given to the sensory organs. It is thanks to them that a person receives information from the world around him. Based on the manifestations and functions, a classification of emotions and feelings is carried out.
Emotion Categories
Psychologists have tried to identify different types of emotions. Several different theories have emerged to classify and explain them.
In the 1970s, psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic types that, in his opinion, are experienced by representatives of all cultures. He highlighted happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. Later, the list of basic emotions was expanded to include pride, shame, embarrassment and excitement.
According to data from more recent studies, 27 different categories can be distinguished.
Happiness is often defined as a feeling of satisfaction, joy, and well-being.
Sadness is often defined as a transitional emotional state characterized by feelings of frustration, grief, hopelessness, disinterest, and low mood.
Fear has very strong manifestations, and it can also play an important role in survival. When faced with danger, the body produces a certain reaction. Muscles become tense, heart rate and breathing become more frequent, consciousness sets the body to either escape from danger, or to stay and fight.
Disgust can be caused by an unpleasant taste, smell, or image seen.
Anger can be a particularly strong emotion characterized by feelings of hostility, agitation, frustration, and antagonism to others.
Surprise is usually quite short-lived and is characterized by a certain physiological reaction. This type can be positive, negative or neutral.
Feelings and organs
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) is credited with the traditional classification of feelings based on five elements: vision, smell, taste, touch and hearing. The famous philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed back in the 1760s that our knowledge of the outside world depended on our ways of perceiving it. Each of the five senses consists of organs with specialized cellular structures that have receptors for specific stimuli. These cells are connected to the nervous system and therefore to the brain. Feeling arises at primitive levels in the cells and integrates into sensations in the nervous system.
The term "sense organ" means a special organ that can recognize some kind of irritation from the outside.
Feelings
Perception and illusions are not limited to our eyes. According to the classification of human feelings, eyesight, hearing, touch, smell and balance are distinguished. Each receptor is a kind of sensor that targets a specific type of stimulus. This is called selectivity of the sensory system. In each eye, more than 100 million photoreceptors direct electromagnetic energy precisely in the frequency range of visible light. Different species even target different colors and light levels.
Based on the classification of feelings, we can say that auditory, sensory feelings and balance are associated with movement, vibration or gravitational force. They are felt by mechanoreceptors. The sense of touch further includes thermoreceptors for detecting temperature changes.
A sense of balance helps to understand in which direction the head is oriented, including to feel the direction "up". Finally, taste and smell are grouped into one category, called chemical senses, which relies on chemoreceptors. They provide signals based on the chemical composition of a substance appearing on the tongue or in the nasal passages.
Organ Classification
Scientists present the following classification of sensory organs:
- Primary sensory (neurosensory), including the organs of smell and vision.
- Secondary sensory (sensory epithelial). These include taste buds, hearing, and balance.
- Sensory endings.
The analyzer is a general term that means a neurophysiological system consisting of three components: sensory, connective and central. The first part is present by the sensory organ or end, the last by the cerebral cortex of the granular (sensory) type. They are connected by nerves that resemble the intermediate part of the analyzer. Because of the type of sensation, there are such basic analyzes in the human body: visual, auditory, smell, taste, touch, pressure, pain, and so on, which forms the basis for the classification of feelings.