Kinesthesis: Can You Touch the Tip of Your Nose with Your Eyes Closed?

If you can touch the tip of your nose with your eyes closed, as most people can, you

have an intact sense of kinesthesis. Kinesthesis, also known as proprioception,

is the capacity to know the position in space of various parts of your body. (The

term proprioception is related to the word “property.” Your body belongs to you—

it’s your property.) Close your eyes and lift or lower a single finger. You know

where it is at all times. When you walk you can sense the position of your legs even

if you’re not looking at them. Pianists and dancers rely heavily on kinesthesis.

The receptor neurons for kinesthesis are located in the connective tissue surrounding the body’s joints as well as within the joints themselves.

The Sense of Balance:Walking in an Upright Position

The sense of balance informs you that you are walking in an upright position. What

you are sensing is the relationship of your body, and in particular your head, to the

Earth’s gravitational field. The sense of balance is made possible by receptor neurons

located in the semicircular canals. Located in the inner ear, the canals are tubular

bones filled with fluid. The movement of this fluid stimulates the firing of receptor

neurons within the canals, and the information is transmitted to the brain.

The sense of balance is also known as the vestibular sense. A vestibule is a

small antechamber or passageway. This is one way to describe the semicircular

canals, important components of the apparatus involved in the sense of balance.

TEST

1. Sensation refers to

a. organized experience

b. thinking and concept formation

c. meaningful knowledge

d. the raw data of experience

2. The waves to which we give the name “light” are a narrow band of

a. the electromagnetic spectrum

b. radio waves

c. ultra-violet waves

d. infra-red waves

3. The trichromatic theory proposes that we have

a. three kinds of optic nerves

b. a triad of lenses

c. three kinds of cones

d. three kinds of rods

4. A sound wave

a. can travel through outer space

b. cannot travel through water

c. has frequency, but not amplitude

d. requires a medium such as air or water

5. What structure in the ear is similar in function to the eye’s retina?

a. The basilar membrane

b. The auditory nerve

c. The tympanic membrane

d. The oval window

6. The four basic taste sensations are

a. sweet, salty, bitter, and hot

b. sweet, bitter, burned, and salty

c. sour, acid, sweet, and mint

d. sweet, salty, bitter, and sour

7. One of the following is not a skin sense.

a. Light touch

b. Incongruent pleasure

c. Deep touch

d. Temperature

8. The receptor organ that makes smell possible is called the

a. vestibular membrane

b. olfactory epithelium

c. odor membrane

d. synaptic epithelium

9. What sense makes it possible for you to touch the tip of your nose with your

eyes closed?

a. The vestibular sense

b. The cardiovascular sense

c. Kinesthesis

d. Synthesis

10. The vestibular sense lets you know when

a. a signal is present

b. a figure is perceived against a ground

c. you are walking upright

d. you have a subliminal perception

True or False

1. T F The word sensation refers to the raw data of experience.

2. T F The trichromatic theory of color perception hypothesizes that we

have three kinds of cones, differentially sensitive to three wavelengths

of light, in the retina of the eye.

3. T F A sound wave has the remarkable property of being able to travel

through a vacuum.

4. T F The units that make taste possible are clusters of neurons located on

the tongue called taste buds.

5. T F You have no receptor neurons in the joints of your body.

Self-check

• differentiate among sensation, perception, and cognition;

• describe key aspects of the visual process;

• explain the trichromatic theory of color perception;

• describe key aspects of the hearing process;

• identify principal features of the processes associated with taste, the skin senses,

smell, kinesthesis, and the vestibular sense.

Match the terms with their definitions

a)

absolute threshold	the weakest amount of a stimulus that a person can detect half the time
difference threshold	the smallest change in a physical stimulus that can be detected between two stimuli
perception	the organization of sensory information into meaningful experiences
psychophysics	the study of the relationships between sensory experiences and the physical stimuli that cause them
sensation	what occurs when a stimulus activates a receptor
signal-detection theory	the study of people’s tendencies to make correct judgments in detecting the presence of stimuli
Weber’s law	the principle that for any change in a stimulus to be detected, a constant proportion of that stimulus must be added or subtracted

b)

auditory nerve	the sense of movement and body position
binocular fusion	the nerve that carries smell impulses from the nose to the brain
kinesthesis	three semicircular canals that provide the sense of balance located in the inner ear and connected to the brain by a nerve
lens	the nerve that carries impulses from the inner ear to the brain, resulting in the sensation of sound
olfactory nerve	the differences between the images stimulating each eye
optic nerve	the process of combining the images received from the two eyes into a single, fused image
pupil	the nerve that carries impulses from the retina to the brain
retina	the innermost coating of the back of the eye, containing the light-sensitive receptor cells
retinal disparity	a flexible, elastic, transparent structure in the eye that changes its shape to focus light on the retina
vestibular system	the opening in the iris that regulates the amount of light entering the eye