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:
“Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Beauty satisfies the senses completely and at the same time uplifts the soul. That which gratifies the senses is pleasant, and that which uplifts the soul without being sensual in the least is good, true, right, anything you like, but not beautiful.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)