Module 1 - Senses and perception Flashcards
(72 cards)
What are sense organs made of?
They are highly organized aggregations of tissues, which in turn are made up of cells.
What is the fundamental structural and functional unit of living systems?
The cell
What are the four principal types of tissues in the human body?
Epithelial tissue – Forms linings for external and internal body surfaces.
Connective tissue – Includes skin layers, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bones.
Muscle tissue – Has the ability to contract.
Nerve tissue – Generates and conducts electrical signals.
What type of epithelial cells are most relevant to sensory perception?
Squamous epithelial cells, which compose the outer skin layer and line certain internal cavities.
What defines an organ?
An organ consists of at least two different types of tissue functioning together for a common purpose.
What are the five human sense organs and their functions?
- Eyes – Sight
- Ears – Hearing
- Nose – Smell
- Mouth – Taste
- Skin – Touch
What are the three stages of sensory perception?
- Sensory reception – Receptor cells detect a stimulus.
- Nerve transmission – Neurons transmit electrical signals to the brain.
- Brain processing – The brain interprets the sensory information.
What is the difference between taste and flavour?
- Taste refers strictly to gustation (e.g., sweetness, sourness).
- Flavour is a combination of taste, smell, and other sensory modalities.
What are sensory receptors?
Specialised cells that respond to a stimulus, the agent that generates a response.
What are the stimulus that sensory receptors respond to?
- a mechanical action (such as pressure, felt in the sense of touch, or air pressure vibrations, as in hearing),
- electromagnetic radiation (detection of photons of visible light by the eyes; detection of an increase of temperature in skin tissue, when exposed to radiant heat),
- a chemical stimulus (such as the molecules or ions that generate odour, taste, or sensations of warmth or coolness in the mouth).
What is sensation?
The process of the body responding to its environment by transmitting information to the brain.
What is perception?
The conscious process of the brain selecting, organising or interpreting the response to the stimulus (such as a pain, a sound, a vision of the world around us, or a flavour).
What is the sense of taste sometimes called?
What is the sense of smell often called?
- Gustation
- Olfaction
Other than gustation and olfaction, what are some other senses important to the perception of food and wine?
- texture, or the sense of touch, also known as a tactile sensation
-sensations such as pungency and coolness, now classified by the term chemesthesis
- visual appearance, conveyed by the sense of sight
What are the individual sensory processes often called?
These individual sensory processes are often called sensory modalities.
What are some of the words used to describe the perception of an olfactory sensation?
‘Aroma’, ‘bouquet’, ‘fragrance’, ‘nose’, ‘odour’, ‘scent’, and ‘smell’.
With wine, what does the term ‘bouquet’ mean?
- indicating the perception provided by the range of olfactory stimuli that develop in an older wine through ageing.
- a wine that is young will have little bouquet, whereas a wine that is old may have a range of smells that were not evident in the young wine.
With wine, what does the term ‘aroma’ mean?
- The perception provided by any individual olfactory stimulus (e.g. ‘the aroma of cineole is minty’) or by a range of olfactory stimuli (e.g. ‘the aroma of a complex Montrachet with age’).
- Sometimes used to identify the range of stimuli that are derived from the grape or alcoholic fermentation but not from the ageing of wine. In this use, an aroma is present in a young wine, but it fades with time.
- When used this way, it is the complement of the bouquet; the total olfactory effect of a wine is the sum of its aroma and its bouquet.
- Used in a positive sense, to indicate pleasurable stimuli; it is less used with stimuli that are unpleasant.
With wine, what does the term ‘Odour’ mean?
- This is a neutral term to describe the sensation that results when olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity are stimulated.
- An odour may result from one stimulus or a range of stimuli; it may be pleasant or unpleasant; it may arise from the grape berry or be produced later.
What is an odorant?
The source of an odour is an odorant.
What is taste? What is the source of a taste?
- The perception that results when taste buds in the mouth or throat respond to a stimulus.
- The source of a taste is a tastant.
What is a flavour?
In this subject, when a perception integrates the sense of taste with other sensory modalities, it will be described as a flavour.
What are the chemical senses?
Taste, smell, and chemesthesis, which provide sensations from chemical interactions in the environment with receptor cells (chemoreceptors).
What is a chemosensory process?
The action of receptor cells, nerves, and brain processing in response to chemical stimuli.
