Sensations - this is the simplest mental cognitive process. All of them can be divided into three types: interoceptive, proprioceptive and exteroceptive. The first group includes sensations arising from impulses reaching us from the internal environment of the human body; to the second - reflection of information about the location of the body in space, providing regulation and correction of movement; to the third group - sensations that appear due to signals from the outside world, creating the basis for conscious actions and human behavior. Various types characterize certain properties of sensations, but we will talk about this below.
A group of interoceptive sensations brings to the brain information about the internal processes taking place in the human body. This species is the most ancient and is classified as less conscious than others.
Proprioceptive sensations are reflected information about the location of the human body in space. They play a major role in regulating movement. The receptors of the periphery of proprioceptive sensitivity are in the joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. The excitations arising in these receptors relate to sensations that occur during muscle tension and relaxation and changes in the position of the joints. This group includes a special kind of sensitivity called the “sense of balance." Their receptors are located in the inner ear and are connected to the vestibular apparatus.
The third, most common group is exteroceptive sensations, which convey various information to the human body emanating from the outside world. There are distant and contact sensations. Contact can be caused by effects directly applied to the surface of the body or of the receptive organ. Examples of contact sensations are touch, taste. Distant ones are caused by an irritant acting on the receptors of analyzers at a distance. These include the sense of smell, hearing and vision.
Types of sensations
The most famous since the time of Aristotle are such types as auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile and taste. But a person has specific types of sensations that give information about acceleration, vibration, time. A person does not feel certain types of energy at all at the level of consciousness (for example, radiation, ultraviolet and infrared radiation, ultrasound, infrasound, and others). Different species can interact with each other.
Sensation Properties
Types of sensations have differences in the sources that generate them, and other differences. They have not only specific features, but also general properties of sensations: quality, intensity, duration.
Intensity is a characteristic determined by the strength of the stimulus and the state of the receptor.
Quality is a feature that distinguishes it from other forms of sensation and varies within this type of sensation.
Duration is a temporary characteristic and determines the duration of the stimulus and its intensity.
Under the influence of the stimulus on the receptors of the senses, sensation may occur not immediately, but after some time. This period is called latent, which is different for different types of sensations.
These are the properties of the sensations that we examined in this article.
So, we found out that sensation is a mental cognitive process, which consists in reflecting the properties of objects and the internal conditions of the body when stimuli act on sensory receptors. The functions of sensations are to quickly and timely convey to the central nervous system of a person information about the state of the internal and external environment.