Human Senses
The senses are our guide to the world, keeping us out of danger and directing us to pleasure. But how sensitive and accurate are they? And Just how intense a sensation can we bear? Human Senses is a BBC documentary series presented by Nigel Marven, looking at six human senses - smell, taste, hearing, balance, touch, and vision. The series consists of three episode, each of which deals with two senses of the six human senses: smell and taste; hearing and balance; and touch and vision. Throughout the series, Nigel Marven attempts to discover the basic biological reasons why particular smells, tastes, sounds and sights have powerful emotional effects on us.
| Episode 3 - Touch and Vision |
Episode 1 - Smell and Taste
The first half of this episode goes in search of the most disgusting and the most attractive smells, and attempts to discover the basic biological reasons for this. The second half attempts to discover the biological reasons why humans eat such a range of diverse tasting dishes, from rotten raw ducks eggs to a sweaty blue cheese.
Episode 2 - Hearing and Balance
The first part of this episode embarks on a quest to track down the sounds which have the most powerful emotional effects on us, and to understand why. The second part deals with balance - our true sixth sense; it enables us to sense how our bodies are moving around in the world and keep us upright.
Episode 3 - Touch and Vision
Humans are very sensitive to touch and different parts of our body have different sensitivities. The sense of touch is the theme of the first part of this episode. The second part deals with vision. Human's real specialty is checking each other out. We are so good at it, we do it without even being aware of it.
| Related Links |
| The Truth about Food This is a six-part documentary series that looks at the real science behind the food we eat and reveals the truth about the effects of food on our bodies. |
| The Truth about Taste Taste is our most indulgent sense but it is only in recent years that we have started to understand why we really love the foods we do - and it is a lot more surprising than you might think. |
| Human Body: Pushing the Limits This is a four-part documentary series exploring topics on how the body reacts to moments of extreme stress like being stuck in a cave or running away from forest fires. |
| Human Instinct This is a BBC documentary series presented by Robert Winston, examining human instincts and patterns of behavior. |
| Body Story This is a Discovery Channel documentary series about the human body and the biological processes it undergoes during distinct life events. |
| Sensory Systems This course examines the neural bases of sensory perception. The focus is on physiological and anatomical studies of the mammalian nervous system as well as behavioral studies of animals and humans. |