exteroception

Thesaurus

Noun

exteroception - sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the bodysensitivity, sensitiveness, sensibility - (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation; "sensitivity to pain"visual modality, visual sense, vision, sight - the ability to see; the visual facultycutaneous senses, sense of touch, skin senses, touch modality, touch - the faculty by which external objects or forces are perceived through contact with the body (especially the hands); "only sight and touch enable us to locate objects in the space around us"audition, auditory modality, auditory sense, sense of hearing, hearing - the ability to hear; the auditory faculty; "his hearing was impaired"gustation, gustatory modality, sense of taste, taste - the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth; "his cold deprived him of his sense of taste"olfaction, olfactory modality, sense of smell, smell - the faculty that enables us to distinguish scents

Exteroception

the perception of environmental stimuli acting on the body. The stimuli are perceived by special, sometimes highly complex, structures called exteroceptors. An example of exteroception is the perception of light, sound, or heat.

The various external stimuli that excite the exteroceptors determine the volume of information needed by a living organism to adapt properly to the environment. They are also responsible for the nature of conditioned and unconditioned activity. The types of exteroceptors most important for a particular organism developed in the course of evolution. For example, fishes developed a lateral line, which perceives the hydrodynamic properties of water, and bats acquired an apparatus for locating ultrashort sound waves. Conditioned reflexes are essential for perceiving external objects. For example, a combination of stimuli emanating from the retina and eye muscles and coinciding several times with tactile stimuli from an object becomes a conditioned signal of the size of the object.

V. N. CHERNIGOVSKII

exteroception

noun

Words related to exteroception

noun sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body

Related Words

sensitivity
sensitiveness
sensibility
visual modality
visual sense
vision
sight
cutaneous senses
sense of touch
skin senses
touch modality
touch
audition
auditory modality
auditory sense
sense of hearing
hearing
gustation
gustatory modality
sense of taste
taste
olfaction
olfactory modality
sense of smell
smell