A Touching Subject

The possibility of differentiating our senses comes from our ability to determine the means by which they are aroused. The game of peek-a-boo teaches babies that although their eyes may be covered, the world they see does not disappear. The connection between one aspect of understanding one's surroundings, and the eyes, is developed: vision is not reality. The different perception of an object when it is placed in the mouth shows the mouth to be a location of particular sensibility. Objects not in the mouth do not have the same richness of perception as when they are in contact with the tongue. This can be a fun game for a baby, separating an object's taste from its other qualities, and learning that their fingers cannot taste. A childhood cold teaches the differences and connections between taste and smell: foods taste different, although the tongue itself is unimpaired. Similarly, playing with the ears teaches of their function. Touch functions only when one's body is in contact with an object. Thus, the body, the world beyond, and our means of learning about it, become consciously differentiated. Although the sensory organs can be differentiated, the perceptual distinctions between the senses may be blurred. The strong connection between smell and taste is possibly the clearest example. The McGurk effect reveals a connection between hearing and vision, and experiments with artificial colors and tastes indicate that even vision has a huge impact on our sense of taste. Synesthetes have more pervasive connections between sensory functions, often involving color and letters. For them, the shape and color-aspects of vision are not separable as they are in other people, and some shapes are connected with characteristic colors. Although we have knowledge of the different sensory organs, their connection in the mind, developed through habituation, can be difficult to then separate.