Sensorium

A sensorium (plural: sensoria) is the sum of an organism's perception, the "seat of sensation" where it experiences and interprets the environments within which it lives. The term originally entered English from the Late Latin in the mid-17th century, from the stem sens- (" sense"). In earlier use it referred, in a broader sense, to the brain as the mind's organ (Oxford English Dictionary 1989). In medical, psychological, and physiological discourse it has come to refer to the total character of the unique and changing sensory environments perceived by individuals. These include the sensation, perception, and interpretation of information about the world around us by using faculties of the mind such as senses, phenomenal and psychological perception, cognition, and intelligence.

Read more about Sensorium:  Ratios of Sensation, Development of Unique Sensoria in Cultures and Individuals, Sensory Ecology and Anthropology, Clouded Sensorium

Famous quotes containing the word sensorium:

    Updike was the first to take the penile sensorium under the wing of elaborate metaphorical prose.
    Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)

    Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!... eternal fountain of our feelings!—’tis here I trace thee—and this is thy divinity which stirs within me ...—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world!
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)