Cats - How intelligent are they?

The term "touch" is actually the combined term for several senses.. but in medicine "touch" is usually replaced with somatic senses.. to better show the variety of mechanisms involved.

Touch is not one sense, it is many.

Quote:

Somatic sensation consists of the various sensory receptors that trigger the experiences labelled as touch or pressure, temperature (warm or cold), pain (including itch and tickle), and the sensations of muscle movement and joint position including posture, movement, and facial expression (collectively also called proprioception).

And, considering

Quote:

A broadly acceptable definition of a sense would be "a system that consists of a sensory cell type (or group of cell types) that responds to a specific kind of physical phenomenon, and that correspond to a defined region (or group of regions) within the brain where the signals are received and interpreted."

.. the somatic senses should be separated because they all deal with different stimuli.

Even sight is not just one sense. It is the perception of both brightness and colour. Two separate sensors necessary, thus Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses.

Taste, as you all know, is the perception of tastes. Many tastes, not just one. Therefore this one sense of taste is now being found to be four or more different senses, if we also include umami.

And unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Of course labeling them all as different senses would take far too long.. and the list'd be huge..

But.. If the different taste-senses are not regarded as separate senses one may argue that Taste and Smell should likewise be grouped together as one sense.

Above is cited mainly from Wikipedia.

Divine Dragon wrote:

The term "touch" is actually the combined term for several senses.. but in medicine "touch" is usually replaced with somatic senses.. to better show the variety of mechanisms involved.

Touch is not one sense, it is many.

Quote:

Somatic sensation consists of the various sensory receptors that trigger the experiences labelled as touch or pressure, temperature (warm or cold), pain (including itch and tickle), and the sensations of muscle movement and joint position including posture, movement, and facial expression (collectively also called proprioception).

And, considering

Quote:

A broadly acceptable definition of a sense would be "a system that consists of a sensory cell type (or group of cell types) that responds to a specific kind of physical phenomenon, and that correspond to a defined region (or group of regions) within the brain where the signals are received and interpreted."

.. the somatic senses should be separated because they all deal with different stimuli.

Even sight is not just one sense. It is the perception of both brightness and colour. Two separate sensors necessary, thus Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses.

Taste, as you all know, is the perception of tastes. Many tastes, not just one. Therefore this one sense of taste is now being found to be four or more different senses, if we also include umami.

And unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Of course labeling them all as different senses would take far too long.. and the list'd be huge..

But.. If the different taste-senses are not regarded as separate senses one may argue that Taste and Smell should likewise be grouped together as one sense.

Above is cited mainly from Wikipedia.

Those are valid definitions and are new concepts, but they are subsumed under the original five senses, though it sounds like Taste and Smell could be classified as one. A sense of balance presupposes the sense Touch/Feel, same for body awareness, pain and temperature, and sometimes compound sensations that activate several at once.

Obviously science has expanded the original senses to these newer concepts that encompass a smaller range, and will likely find more of these. I agree these are actual sensations, but they are based upon the original five senses.