Episode Details

Many of us grew up learning that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch – an idea dating back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. But what if this list is incomplete? A sense is anything that can give your body information about the outside world, and some of these don't neatly fit into the traditional five. Modern scientists estimate there may be up to 33 different senses.

我们中的许多人在成长过程中都知道人类有五种感官：视觉、听觉、味觉、嗅觉和触觉——这个想法可以追溯到古希腊哲学家亚里士多德。 但如果这个列表不完整怎么办？ 感觉是任何可以为你的身体提供有关外部世界信息的东西，其中一些并不完全符合传统的五种感觉。 现代科学家估计可能有多达 33 种不同的感觉。

One sense that doesn't fit into one of the five boxes is proprioception. This is the sense of where your body parts are in space. Thanks to this sense, you can touch your nose with your eyes closed and walk around in the dark – you know where your legs are without looking. Then there's interoception which helps you sense things inside your body, like hunger and an increased heart rate. And don't take your sense of balance for granted. Balance relies on fluid in your inner ear to help you stay upright – this is what's called vestibular perception.

本体感觉是一种不属于这五个框之一的感觉。 这是你的身体部位在空间中的位置的感觉。 多亏了这种感觉，你可以闭上眼睛摸鼻子，在黑暗中走来走去——不用看就知道你的腿在哪里。 然后是内感受，可以帮助您感知体内的事物，例如饥饿和心率加快。 并且不要认为你的平衡感是理所当然的。 平衡依靠内耳中的液体来帮助您保持直立——这就是所谓的前庭感知。

And the traditional five senses might not be as simple as they seem. Touch, the sense we associate with our hands and tactile sensations, also encompasses the sensation of pain, temperature and itch. To perceive the flavours in food and drink, you need a combination of taste, smell and touch to get the full experience – it's not all about the taste buds on your tongue! It is actually smell that contributes most of what we perceive as taste, so when a person suffers olfactory loss, they often can't enjoy food as much, according to a 2022 study published in Foods by Fjaeldstad and Smith.

传统的五种感官可能并不像看上去那么简单。 触觉是我们与手和触觉联系在一起的感觉，也包括疼痛、温度和瘙痒的感觉。 要感知食物和饮料的味道，您需要味觉、嗅觉和触觉的结合才能获得完整的体验——这不仅仅是舌头上的味蕾！ 根据 Fjaeldstad 和 Smith 于 2022 年在《食品》杂志上发表的一项研究，实际上，我们所感知的味觉大部分是由气味决定的，因此，当一个人丧失嗅觉时，他们通常无法充分享受食物。

Until recently, philosophers and scientists have studied each of the traditional five senses in isolation, but researchers at the University of London's Centre for the Study of the Senses have more of a multisensory approach – the senses are all working together to create an overall picture. In their 'Rethinking the Senses' project, they found that our perception of salt, sweet and sour flavours is reduced when there is white noise, but our perception of umami is not. This means that sound can enhance flavo