They are; sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, pain, balance, thirst and hunger.
MessageToEagle.com – Have you ever heard the expression someone has a sixth sense? Why limit our senses to a sixth sense? Actually, according to scientists, humans can have between 9 to 21 senses in total!
The idea that humans have only five sense is a pure myth. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), ancient Greek philosopher and scientist is credited with the traditional classification of the five sense organs: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Aristotle was wrong, but the myth of five senses persists.
Currently, there is no concrete definition of what constitutes a sense, but according to most researchers a sense is a feeling or perception produced through the organs of touch, taste , etc., or resulting from a particular condition of some part of the body. In order for us to have a sense, there needs to be a sensor. Each sensor is tuned to one specific sensation. For example, there are sensors in your eyes that can detect light.
The five senses mentioned by Aristotle are what we call traditional senses, but there are also additional senses such as:
Equilibrioception: Simply known as the sense of balance. It is helps prevent humans and animals from falling over when standing or moving.
Proprioception: This is the perception of one’s body in space or the body’s position. Even if a person is blindfolded, he or she knows through proprioception if an arm is above the head or hanging by the side of the body.
Thermoception is the sense of heat. Specialized cellular sense receptors (thermoreceptors) allow the detection of cold and hot temperatures. It means we know which object is hot without touching it.
Nociception is the ability to feel pain.
Magnetoception is the ability to detect magnetic fields. Unlike birds, humans do not have a strong sense of magnetoception, but we still have a certain orientation of when detecting the Earth’s magnetic field.