Sensory receptor organs act as filters of the environment by responding to certain stimuli (ie. eyes for vision, ears for hearing). These organs, often times body parts, are particularly sensitive to some forms of energy.
- Receptor cells
- Hierarchy of Sensory Systems

Sensory Organs

A stimulus (plural: stimuli) is an event that affects the sensory organ. Stimuli can be sound waves, light entering the eye, or food touching the tongue.
- Adequate stimulus
- Labeled Lines
- Stimulus localization
- Selection and analysis along sensory pathways
- Selectivity and Range of Response to Stimuli

Stimuli

A condition in which a stimulus in one modality can trigger experiences in another or multiple other modalities. For example, to someone with this condition (a synesthete), the letter could be seen as green, or a particular musical tone could evoke a particular taste sensation. 
For the colored letters and numbers, some studies have pointed to this association with popular toys that depict these figures in the same colors. 

Synesthesia

A large part of our somatosensory system is responsible for our perception of touch.
- Sensory Organ: Skin
- Dorsal Column System
- Primary Sensory Cortex
- Secondary Sensory Cortex
- Skin sensory receptors

Somatosensory System: Touch

The somatosensory system is partly responsible for detecting painful stimuli. Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.
- Importance of Pain
- Congenital Insensitivity to Pain
- Classifying Pain
- Biological Basis of Pain

Somatosensory System: Pain

Sensory processing, touch and pain references

A condition where the brain has trouble receiving and responding to sensory input. May affect one or multiple senses. Symptoms could include over-sensitivity to certain stimuli, difficulties with coordination, or failure to respond to outside stimuli. This disorder is often seen in individuals on the Autism spectrum. It is not currently recognized as a distinct medical diagnosis.

Sensory Processing Disorder

Sensory receptors such as eyes or taste buds develop differently in different species. Sensory processing refers to the ways the brain integrates information received from sensory receptors in order to process appropriate behavioral or cognitive response. 

- Sensory organs
- Stimuli
- Receptor Cells
- Touch and the skin
- Pain
- Sensory processing disorder
- Synesthesia

University of Rochester

Grinnell College

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

- Sensory Processing, Touch, Pain
- Hearing, Vestibular Perception
- Taste
- Smell
- Vision
- Motor Control and Plasticity

Neuroscience of Perception and Action

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

Sensory processing, touch and pain

Taste is a chemical sense

- The five basic tastes
- How taste functions

Taste

Chemicals in the air trigger odor sensation

- receptors in the nose
- transmission to brain regions
- anosmia

Smell

- Behavioral view of reflexes
- Control systems for accuracy vs speed
- Spinal cord's role in controling body movement
- Motor cortexes
- Extrapyramidal systems role in motor commands
- Brain disorders and motor impairments

Motor Control 

People's experience is shaped by the sensory experience, which relies on other senses to process information. This is crossmodality. The interactions between senses change how the other senses are processed. For example, the interactions of sight and somatosensation is proprioception. This is only true in sighted individuals, and blind individuals have different ways of proprioception. Plasticity of the brain allows crossmodality to be effective. 
Crossmodality can both enhance and hinder sensory expereinces and how people perceive the world.

Crossmodality of the senses

- How hearing functions in the ear
- Auditory signals
- Hearing loss
- Vestibular perception
- Vestibular system

Hearing and Vestibular perception

People tend to use a high amount of visual information to inform their daily activities. There is also a lot of sensory information coming in through the eyes, which makes the visual system a highly researched field of neuroscience. 

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