Importance of Sensations

Through sensations, we can precisely "feel" the world around us., in all its splendor and in any of its aspects. Sensations are stimuli that we receive from the outside, from our environment, and that are captured by one or more of our senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch or taste. But how is it that sensations are produced? That's where we're going.

Everything that appears before us, causes us in one way or another some specific sensation. We cannot eat an apple without being able to feel that its taste is sweet or, instead, it is a little sour. likewise, all sound that we listen to our surroundings (activating the sense of hearing) will cause us certain sensations: a noise from a car braking suddenly will cause us panic or worry, while listening to one of our favorite singer's songs will undoubtedly cause us quite pleasure or sound comfort.

So, with all our senses. When a particular external stimulus is received by us Let's take a song as an example. one or more of our senses are activated

(those that are necessary to receive said stimulus, which in the case of the example that we have given would be the ear), and through said sense, these stimuli are transformed into electrical impulses that through the nervous system arrive at the brain, which allows classifying and ordering said information -provided by the stimulus- and causing us one or another specific sensation, as pleasure. This process, of course, only lasts a few thousandths of a second, the necessary ones for our response to the stimulus to be more than immediate. How long does it take to frown or twist your mouth when eating an orange that we feel is too sour?

The reaction to certain sensations sometimes depends not only on whether we feel the orange is very sour or rich and sweet, which would be characteristics physical stimulus, if not that other times we can experience certain sensations from experiences or previous experiences. For example, that a particular song (heard) causes us nostalgia and anguish because it reminds us of a relative that we loved and is no longer there. Or watching a cartoon movie (view) provokes us happiness and pleasure because it evokes our stage as children, childhood. For this reason, evaluations, analyzes or sensory tests are often used frequently by therapists, educational psychologists and psychologists to diagnose their patients.