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自古以来，人类拥有 “五感” 已成为一种共识。我们习惯于通过自己的眼睛、耳朵、鼻子、舌头和皮肤来探索世界。然而，现在有研究认为，人类的感官能力远不止于此，如果将平衡感和饥饿感等感知能力计算在内，人类可能拥有多达 33 种感官。本文带你了解除了五感以外我们的身体还有哪些感知世界的方式。

词汇：senses 感官

1 Many of us grew up learning that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch – an idea dating back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. But what if this list is incomplete? A sense is anything that can give your body information about the outside world, and some of these don't neatly fit into the traditional five. Modern scientists estimate there may be up to 33 different senses.

2 One sense that doesn't fit into one of the five boxes is proprioception. This is the sense of where your body parts are in space. Thanks to this sense, you can touch your nose with your eyes closed and walk around in the dark – you know where your legs are without looking. Then there's interoception which helps you sense things inside your body, like hunger and an increased heart rate. And don't take your sense of balance for granted. Balance relies on fluid in your inner ear to help you stay upright – this is what's called vestibular perception.

3 And the traditional five senses might not be as simple as they seem. Touch, the sense we associate with our hands and tactile sensations, also encompasses the sensation of pain, temperature and itch. To perceive the flavours in food and drink, you need a combination of taste, smell and touch to get the full experience – it's not all about the taste buds on your tongue! It is actually smell that contributes most of what we perceive as taste, so when a person suffers olfactory loss, they often can't enjoy food as much, according to a 2022 study published in Foods by Fjaeldstad and Smith.

4 Until recently, philosophers and scientists have studied each of the traditional five senses in isolation, but researchers at the University of London's Centre for the Study of the Senses have more of a multisensory approach – the senses are all working together to create an overall picture. In their 'Rethinking the Senses' project, they found that our perception of salt, sweet and sour flavours is reduced when there is white noise, but our perception of umami is not. This means that sound can enhance flavour, and that umami-rich foods like tomato juice might taste better on a plane.

5 So, perhaps humans are far more sensory creatures than Aristotle ever imagined. From balance and body awareness to the way sound can change flavour, our senses are constantly working together in ways we rarely notice.

测验与练习

一、为本文选择总结句。

a. Humans experience their senses in isolation.
b. Each of the senses can influence each other.
c. Humans may have more senses than originally thought.

二、根据文章内容选出正确的选项。

1. Aristotle thought the list of five senses was incomplete.
a. True
b. False
c. Not given

2. Which sense helps us know when we to eat?
a. proprioception
b. interoception
c. vestibular perception

3. Hearing is experienced only using the ears.
a. True
b. False
c. Not given

4. Researchers at the Centre for the Study of the Senses research the senses in isolation.
a. True
b. False
c. Not given

5. What does the 'Rethinking the Senses' project tell us?
a. Sweet and salty foods might taste better on the ground than on a plane.
b. Our hearing and taste senses don't interact.
c. Airlines should only serve sweet and salty foods.

三、用下列单词完成对本文的总结。

It's easy to 1) _______ how your senses are working together to create your experience of the outside world. We don't think about the mechanisms that are keeping us standing 2) _______, or how your body knows when to scratch a(n) 3) _______ on your skin. Modern scientists are beginning to view our senses from a(n) 4) _______ approach. Some researchers found that 5) _______ can enhance the perception of umami-rich foods.

take for granted
multisensory
white noise
upright
itch
proprioception
tactile

（答案见词汇表后）

词汇表

proprioception 本体感觉
interoception 内感受
take (something) for granted 认为（某事）理所当然
upright 直立的
vestibular perception 前庭觉
tactile 触觉的
itch 痒
taste buds 味蕾
olfactory 嗅觉的
multisensory 多感官的
white noise 白噪音
umami （食物的）鲜味
sensory 感觉的，感官的

答案

一、为本文选择总结句。

c. Humans may have more senses than originally thought.

二、根据文章内容选出正确的选项。

1. b. False.Many of us grew up learning that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch – an idea dating back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

2. b. Then there's interoception which helps you sense things inside your body, like hunger and an increased heart rate.

3. c.Not given. The mechanisms of touch and taste are mentioned but not hearing.

4. b. False. … researchers at the University of London's Centre for the Study of the Senses have more of a multisensory approach – the senses are all working together to create an overall picture.

5. a. In the study, they found that perception of salt, sweet and sour flavours is reduced when there is white noise, but our perception of umami is not, so we can infer that sweet and salty food might taste better on the ground than on a plane, where white noise reduces their flavour.

三、用下列单词完成对本文的总结。

It's easy to take for granted how your senses are working together to create your experience of the outside world. We don't think about the mechanisms that are keeping us standing upright, or how your body knows when to scratch an itch on your skin. Modern scientists are beginning to view our senses from a multisensory approach. Some researchers found that white noise can enhance the perception of umami-rich foods.