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Module 1.6d

Module 1.6d Sensation: Skin, Chemical, INTRODUCE THE MODULE

and Body Senses and Make It Meaningful

Sensory Interaction (5 minutes) Ask students to recall
a time when they felt physical
pain. Have them respond to the
LEARNING TARGETS following question:

1.6-12 Explain the four basic touch sensations, and explain how we sense touch.

1.6-13 Compare and contrast the biological, psychological, and social-cultural • Why would it be bad not to
influences that affect our experience of pain, and explain how placebos and feel pain? (Pain allows us to
distraction help control pain. determine injury, sickness, and

1.6-14 Explain our senses of taste and smell. danger.)

1.6-15 Explain how we sense our body’s position and movement.
Use their responses as a basis
1.6-16 Explain how sensory interaction influences our perceptions, and explain the for a class discussion about the
concept of embodied cognition.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
importance of all our senses.
harks and dogs rely on their outstanding sense of smell, aided by their large smell-
related brain areas. By comparison, our human brain allocates more of its real estate
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Sto seeing and hearing. But extraordinary happenings also occur as part of our skin INTRODUCE THE MODULE
(touch and pain), chemical (taste and smell), and body (position and movement) senses.
Without these other senses, we humans would be seriously hampered, and our capacity for Activate Prior Knowledge
enjoying the world would be greatly diminished.
(10 minutes) Begin class with
Touch this activity, which asks students
to decide if statements are
1.6-12 What ar e the four basic touch sensations, and how do we sense touch?
1.6-12 What are the four basic touch sensations, and how do we sense touch?
true or false. The statements
Touch, our tactile sense, is vital. From infancy to adulthood, affectionate touches promote tap into common beliefs and
our well-being ( Jakubiak & Feeney, 2017 ). Right from the start, touch aids our development. misconceptions about psychology.
Infant rats deprived of their mother’s grooming produce less growth hormone and have a
lower metabolic rate — a good way to keep alive until the mother returns, but a reaction that This activity will benefit students’
stunts growth if prolonged. Infant monkeys that are allowed to see, hear, and smell — but understanding of Module 1.6d as
not touch — their mother become desperately unhappy ( Suomi et al., 1976 ). Premature they read.
human babies gain weight faster and go home sooner if they are stimulated by hand
massage ( Field et al., 2006 ). When coping with disaster or grieving a death, we may find M1.6d: Fact or
comfort in a hug. As adults, we still yearn to touch — to kiss, to stroke, to snuggle.
Humorist Dave Barry (1985) was perhaps right to jest that your skin “keeps people Falsehood?
from seeing the inside of your body, which is repulsive, and it prevents your organs from © Jose Luis Pelaez/Blend Images/Corbis
falling onto the ground.” But skin does much more. Touching various spots on the skin with
a soft hair, a warm or cool wire, and the point of a pin reveals that some spots are especially
sensitive to pressure, others to warmth, others to cold, and still others to pain. Our “sense

of touch” is actually a mix of these four basic and distinct skin senses, and our other skin The precious sense of touch As TEACH 1.6-12
William James wrote in his Principles of
sensations are variations of pressure, warmth, cold, and pain. For example, stroking adjacent Psychology (1890) , “Touch is both the Enrichment
pressure spots creates a tickle. Repeated gentle stroking of a pain spot creates an itching alpha and omega of affection.”
Explain to students that there are two
types of skin, the largest organ in the
Sensation: Skin, Chemical, and Body Senses and Sensory Interaction Module 1.6d 143
human body:
• Hairy skin contains hair cells,
which detect movement and
ENGAGE 1.6-12 pressure.
03_myersAPpsychology4e_28116_ch01_002_163.indd 143 15/12/23 4:34 PM
(10 minutes) Tell students that the skin • Glabrous skin contains no hair cells,
senses variations of cold and warm that, so the receptors in this type of skin
when combined, make something feel are more sensitive. Glabrous skin
hot. Use Student Activity: Warm Plus Cold is found mainly on the palms of the
Equals Hot to demonstrate this concept. hands, on the bottoms of the feet,
and on the lips.
M1.6d: Warm Plus Cold Equals Hot

Sensation: Skin, Chemical, and Body Senses and Sensory Interaction Module 1.6d 143

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