The five human senses, namely smell, vision, taste, hearing, and touch facilitates perception and interaction with the outside environment. Specific sections of the brain receive and interpret data from these organs. Any disturbance to these sensory organs can lead to disability. The human senses can be trusted to give a clear interpretation of the external environment in that it works in tandem with the brain, which serves as the interpreter.
The processing of the sense of odor is carried out by different parts of the brain. The receptors in the nose receive the odor causing signals to migrate to the olfactory bulb, thalamus, and the amygdala on the underneath of the brain in a section referred to as the limbic system. The messengers from this system transmit to the temporal and frontal lobes, which are zones involved in determining odor and memorizing it.
The senses of taste and odor are intertwined in that signals produced by taste sensations in the tongue, mouth roof and the throat get into the brain through the brain stem. The limbic system receives both taste signals and sensory input for smell. The closeness of these pathways is the reason for the close relation ship between these two senses (Hootman 1992).
The occipital lobes located at the back of the brain process visual data from the optic nerve. Other parts of the brain collaborate with the occipital lobes in tasks such as memory of people and places, recognizing seen objects and making emotional contact with sight.
Stimuli from the ears are processed by the auditory cortex of the temporal lobes. The association of the auditory cortex and the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain aid in the relating of sounds to specific situations, remembering them, and giving the direction of the source of the sound.
The ability to perceive, determine, and process physical feelings such as touch, temperature, texture pain, pressure and pleasure is done by the parietal lobes of the brain. Specifically the sense of touch takes place in the part of the brain referred to as somatosensory cortex. Different regions of the body possess different degrees of sensation (Bernstein 2001).Despite these strengths, the physical senses are also prone to weaknesses. A good example is the case of the eye: on its own, it cannot function but it requires the intelligence of the brain to interpret its vision, it cannot perceive what is very close, or that which is very distant.
According to studies and experiments carried out, the main issue is whether perception is in born or it is developed by the environment. Methods that have tried to come up with a solution include readjustment studies, distortion studies, deprived environment studies, and cross-cross cultural studies. Distortion studies were developed by G.M Stratton by wearing a lens on one eye that inverted the world and then covering the other eye. After five days, he reported that he could function well. This showed that sight could be changed to fit the prevailing circumstances. By placing prism lenses on chicken, Hess discovered that they could not totally change meaning that humans and animals have different adaptive degrees (Bernstein 2001).
In deprived environment studies, Riesen raised young chimpanzees in complete darkness for 16 months and discovered that their vision was greatly affected; Wiesel sewed the eye of a kitten shut and concluded that if nothing is done the eye remains blind. Blakemoore and cooper found that by limiting the visual environment of an animal, its vision was greatly diminished.