In medicine and anatomy, the special senses are the senses that have specialized organs devoted to them:
- vision (the eye)
- hearing and balance (the ear, which includes the auditory system and vestibular system)
- smell (the nose)
- taste (the tongue)
The distinction between special and general senses is used to classify nerve fibres running to and from the central nervous system - information from special senses is carried in special somatic afferents and special visceral afferents. In contrast, the other sense, touch, is a somatic sense which does not have a specialized organ but comes from all over the body, most noticeably the skin but also the internal organs (viscera). Touch includes mechanoreception (pressure, vibration and proprioception), pain (nociception) and heat (thermoception), and such information is carried in general somatic afferents and general visceral afferents.
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or senses:
“I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all, has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known; I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise helps for the same.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)