Sight. Sound. Smell. Taste. Touch. You know the ones. Our five senses. A neat list handed down by Aristotle and repeated so often it feels like a fact we’ve accepted as true. Modern researchers disagree. Increasingly, scientists argue that humans may have dozens of senses, maybe even up to 33.
That idea has gained traction through work from cognitive scientists and neuroscientists studying how perception actually functions. Researchers involved in the Rethinking the Senses project at the University of Glasgow argue that the traditional list misses huge parts of lived experience. According to their findings, balance, body position, internal body awareness, temperature, pain, and even the feeling that a limb belongs to you all operate as distinct sensory systems.
Neuroscientist Charles Spence, who directs the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford, has suggested that humans likely have between 22 and 33 senses. As he and his colleagues explain, perception doesn’t exactly arrive in tidy lanes. Sensory information blends constantly, shaping how people experience everything from food to movement to emotion.
Taste offers one of the clearest examples. The tongue can detect sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. That’s it. Strawberry, mango, or coffee don’t exist on the tongue itself. Those flavors emerge when odor molecules travel from the mouth into the nasal cavity during chewing. Touch also joins in, influencing whether food feels creamy, thin, firm, or indulgent. What gets called taste is a collaboration between smell, touch, and basic gustation.
Human Senses Are More Flexible Than You Think
The same blending happens everywhere throughout the body. Proprioception allows people to know where their limbs are without looking. The vestibular system inside the inner ear helps maintain balance and orientation. Interoception tracks internal signals like heart rate, hunger, and fullness. Some researchers also point to a sense of agency and a sense of ownership, both of which can be disrupted in stroke patients who feel detached from their own limbs despite intact sensation.
Experiments show how flexible these systems can be. In one study by the university, altering the sound of footsteps made participants feel lighter or heavier while walking. In another, background aircraft noise changed how food tasted. Salty and sweet flavors dulled, while savory notes grew stronger. That quirk explains why tomato juice tends to taste better in the air.
Researchers describe perception as a coordinated process. Vision shifts with balance. Smell alters texture. Sound changes flavor. The senses stay active together, even during screen-heavy days.
The five-sense story is nice, but it leaves out most of what the body does every second. Humans don’t experience the world through a single sense. They experience it through a dense network of signals that never stops working.
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