The five senses are touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. These senses are essential for humans to understand and perceive the world around them. The sensing organs associated with each sense send information to the brain to help us interpret the stimuli we receive.

• Touch: Touch is thought to be the first sense that humans develop, and it consists of several distinct sensations communicated to the brain through specialized neurons in the skin. Pressure, temperature, light touch, vibration, pain, and other sensations are all part of the touch sense and are attributed to different receptors in the skin.

• Sight: The eyes translate light into image signals for the brain to process. The retina in the eye contains specialized cells called photoreceptors that detect light and send signals to the brain through the optic nerve.

• Hearing: Sound waves are detected by the ear and transformed into electrical signals that are sent to the brain. The ear consists of three parts: the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. The inner ear contains the cochlea, which is responsible for converting sound waves into electrical signals.

• Smell: The sense of smell is called olfaction. It starts with specialized nerve receptors located on hairlike cilia in the epithelium at the top of the nasal cavity. When we sniff or inhale through the nose, some chemicals in the air bind to these receptors. That triggers a signal that travels up a nerve fiber, through the epithelium and the skull bone above, to the olfactory bulbs.

• Taste: The gustatory sense is usually broken down into the perception of four different tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. There is also a fifth taste, defined as umami or savory. Taste buds on the tongue detect these tastes and send signals to the brain through nerves.

In addition to these five basic senses, there are other human senses that are less well-known but still essential for daily life. These include spatial awareness, balance, and kinesthetic receptors that detect stretching in muscles and tendons.