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Articles on Senses

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It’s disconcerting to think the way two people perceive the world might be totally different. Mads Perch/Stone via Getty Images

Do you see red like I see red?

Neuroscientists tackling the age-old question of whether perceptions of color hold from one person to the next are coming up with some interesting answers.
A health worker carries out an olfactory test to monitor smell loss to a resident 65 km from Buenos Aires city, on May 24, 2020, amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP via Getty Images

COVID-19, smell and taste – how is COVID-19 different from other respiratory diseases?

Many respiratory viruses cause us to temporarily lose our sense of smell. But SARS-CoV-2 isn’t like those other viruses. Researchers are now exploring how it differs and whether patients recover.
Cookies taste so good. Smell tells us that before we even take a bite. How? Jennifer Pallian/Unsplash

What makes something smell good or bad?

Mmmmmmm. That smells delicious. Wait, how do you know that?
Different MR images help us unravel the mysteries of the brain. A diffusion MRI tractography reconstruction like this reveals the complicated wiring deep within a person’s brain. Thijs Dhollander

Some women seem to lack a key brain structure for smell – but their sense of smell is fine

Odd findings in a brain scan of a 29-year-old woman have scientists asking new questions about how our sense of smell really works.
What makes a brain tick is very different from how computers operate. Yurchanka Siarhei/Shutterstock.com

Why a computer will never be truly conscious

Brain functions integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can’t be handled in the way computers sense, process and store data.
Cathal O’Madagain/AAAS

Gesture as language: why we point with a finger

Designating an object with the movement of a finger is at the heart of human communication, yet precisely why we point isn’t clearly understood. A new paper indicates that it may be related to touch.
The sense of touch is generally measured by a sensor that can translate a pressure upon it into a small electrical signal. Shutterstock

It’s not easy to give a robot a sense of touch

Our sense of touch lets us know how hard or soft something is, how solid or pliable it is to handle. That’s an important skill if you want robots to handle things safely.

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