We spend much of the day glued to screens, with sight and sound dominating our attention. Yet our other senses are constantly at work, quietly shaping how we experience the world. We feel the textures of objects, notice when our bodies are tense, and sense softness, warmth, or soreness often without conscious awareness. Not a single day passes without us taking in sensory input.
We feel the toothpaste, taste and sense the water in the shower, smell the shampoo, and then breathe in the aroma of freshly made coffee. Since time immemorial, Aristotle claimed that human beings had five senses. Although we cannot subscribe to his concept that the world can be composed of five elements, we have also questioned the notion that we can have five senses.
Recent research suggests that humans can have 22 to 33 senses. We rarely experience anything using only one sense. Sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste simultaneously collaborate. What we hear can be changed by what we can feel, and what we can see can be changed by what we can hear. The perception of texture can be altered even by smell. As an example, it is possible to say that hair can be silky with rose-scented shampoo.
Food perception works the same way. Low-fat yogurt can become richer and have the feeling of being thicker without the change of its ingredients through odours added to it. Liquids are perceived differently when they encounter the mouth, and this, in turn, influences how they are smelled. Researchers think that human beings possess numerous other senses, to the extent that Professor Charles Spence of Oxford University’s Crossmodal Laboratory believes that human beings have over a hundred senses. These are proprioception, which enables us to know the location of the limbs without glancing at them, and balance, which is through the inner ear, sight, and body awareness. The other sense is interoception, which enables us to sense internal processes like hunger or an increased heart rate.
We also possess the sense of agency, the feeling that we are in control of our movements. This feeling may be disturbed by a stroke, so that some patients think that other people are moving their arms. Even the traditional senses are more complex than they appear. Touch involves pain, temperature, itch, and pressure. Taste is a combination of gustation, smell, and touch, not the other way around. Gustation is what the tongue perceives, and they include sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.
Mango flavour, strawberry flavour, raspberry flavour, and other flavours lack special receptors on the tongue. These flavours are predominantly experienced through smell. When chewing or sucking, as liquids move through the mouth, their thickness alters how odours rise into the nasal passages and are perceived. This is how smell has the biggest portion in what we refer to as taste. Touch is also playing a role in preferences for food, in deciding whether we prefer runny or firm eggs, or the soft texture of chocolate. The balance can influence sight. Within a plane during takeoff, the cabin looks tilted, although the plane has not changed its visual appearance.
This is because the inner ear conveys movement and changes what we see. Researchers in other disciplines examine such interactions in the Centre of the Study of the Senses in London. The centre initiated the project of Rethinking the Senses in 2013. It was discovered that when the sound of the footsteps is altered, it makes one feel either lighter or heavier. They also found out that some museum audioguides make the visitor recall more visual information.
It was found that aircraft noise diminishes the sense of sweet, salty, and sour tastes but not umami. Tomato juice in an aircraft is more appetizing since it contains a high amount of umami. These effects can be felt at the exhibition Senses Unwrapped in London. In one of the displays, there is the size-weight illusion, where a smaller object seems heavier than a larger object despite all having the same weight. Reality is ever being constructed in a startling fashion through our senses. We can do this by slowing down and paying attention while walking outdoors or eating a meal, becoming more aware of how our many senses work together to shape our everyday experiences.
Reference: THE CONVERSATION. Humans could have as many as 33Â senses. Published December 23, 2025. Accessed December 24, 2025. Humans could have as many as 33Â senses
