A submarine, scooting through the depths, shoots sound waves to probe the mountains and valleys of the ocean floor, allowing humans to explore that inhospitable realm. The Hubble Space Telescope takes snapshots of scenes billions of light-years away, revealing vistas vastly beyond the limits of the human eye. Yet we need not venture to treacherous places to enhance our perception of our home planet. A compass tunes hikers to the earth’s magnetic field, endowing them with knowledge of north and south as they wander through the woods.
All the intricately engineered metal guiding us through water, space or the wilderness pales in comparison to the machinery in your head. Your senses interrogate the physical world, collecting poignant details that inform your thoughts, actions and memory. The articles in this special report investigate how seemingly insignificant glances, whiffs and noises forge a tight bond between you and your environment.
The senses are not as easily divided into the familiar five as was once thought. Information traces unexpected paths through the brain to merge sounds with smells, produce uncanny forms of sight, and perform numerous other subtle yet astounding tasks. In tallying those abilities, we have gone far beyond a mystical “sixth sense”—we’ve doubled the count, and others will surely follow, as Ariel Bleicher explains in “Edges of Perception.”
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Probing the outside world also calibrates your social interactions. Observing your boss’s swift gait, you held back on asking for more time on that assignment. After hearing your usually effusive neighbor’s mumbled greeting, you brought over fresh-baked brownies, and a new friendship was born. In “I Know How You Feel,” Janina Seubert and Christina Regenbogen write that those emotional states would have been utter mysteries had your senses not scanned the scene.
Your built-in environmental detectors even transport you, enabling a type of time travel that a space telescope, for all its glimpses of the birth of the universe, cannot do. Maria Konnikova describes how a single sniff can bring an upwelling of long-dormant memories burbling to the surface, in “Smells Like Old Times.”
The senses imprint your surroundings on your brain. They allow the outside world to influence your thoughts and feelings, adding new dimensions to what we call our “sense” of self.
This article was published in print as "Sensational Senses: Immerse Yourself."
