Sensation, Perception, and States of Consciousness
The sensory receptors in the human body are remarkably sensitive to the types of stimuli in the immediate environment. Absolute threshold, on the other hand, can be defined as the smallest amount of stimulus that can be detected by the sensory receptors in a person. There is the various absolute threshold for all the five senses, which include vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Fechner determined that human being differs in terms of their absolute threshold. However, according to Fechner, the stimuli energy that is detected by people 50% of the time, are considered below the absolute threshold.
According to a German scientist Ernst Weber in the nineteenth century, the ability to sensory receptors to detect a specific stimulus depends on not only the stimuli itself but also on the perceiver and the level of background stimulation. Weber concludes his work in what is known as the Weber law, which states that the amount you must change a stimulus to detect a difference is given by a constant fraction and proportion of the original stimulus. Weber found that the difference threshold differed for each of the senses.
The sensory system in human beings constantly deals with repeated exposure to the same stimuli by becoming less sensitive to them through the process of sensory adaptation. The sensation can be described as the process of transforming stimuli that impinge on our sense organs into neural signals that the brain processes to create sensations of vision, touch, sound, taste, smell, and so on.
Light is physical energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Visible light is the proportion of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that enables us to sense light hence vision. Psychology students are often told that they can remember the order of the colors of the spectrum.
The sense of smell depends solemnly on the receptors in the nose that detect thousands of chemical substances and transmit information about them to the brain. Olfaction, which is the sense of smell, depends on the ability of people to detect shapes of molecules of odorous chemicals that waft into people’s noses.
Olfaction has a significant effect on the sense of taste, which is why, in some circumstances, food tastes bland when your nose is stuffed. The sensory organs of the human body were shaped throughout millions of years of adaptation to the environment. One of the senses that is critical to the survival of human beings is Olfaction. This is because it helps us avoid rotten and potentially harmful foods long before we put our tongue to them.
In conclusion, human beings are visual creatures when it comes to sexual arousal. The role that is played by scent in human sexual arousal is very minute. The prominent biological anthropologist Helen Fisher says that in humans, it is usually loved at first sight, not love at first smell.