Science
What are the five senses?
Quick answer
The five main senses are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Sense organs such as the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin collect information and send it to your brain.
In one sentence
Your senses are the ways your body collects information about the world, and the five main ones are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.
Explained
Your brain lives inside your skull, in the dark and quiet. It needs messengers to tell it what is going on outside. Those messengers are your sense organs. Each one notices something different and sends messages along nerves to your brain, which puts it all together.
- Sight — eyes. Light enters your eye through the black pupil and is focused onto the back of the eye. Cells there turn light into nerve messages.
- Hearing — ears. Sound is vibrations in the air. Your eardrum vibrates, tiny bones pass the vibrations on, and your inner ear turns them into messages.
- Smell — nose. Tiny particles from things like flowers or toast drift into your nose and are detected by special cells high up inside it.
- Taste — tongue. Your tongue is covered in taste buds that detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savoury).
- Touch — skin. Your skin senses pressure, heat, cold and pain. Fingertips and lips are especially sensitive.
Senses often team up. Most of what we call the "flavour" of food is really smell, which is why food tastes dull when you have a cold.
You actually have more than five senses. Your inner ear senses balance, and your muscles and joints tell your brain where your arms and legs are, even with your eyes closed.
Examples
| Sense | Organ | Something to notice |
|---|---|---|
| Sight | eyes | the colours of fruit |
| Hearing | ears | a dog barking far away |
| Smell | nose | bread baking |
| Taste | tongue | sour lemon juice |
| Touch | skin | rough tree bark |
eye
ear
nose
mouth
hand
Common mistakes
- "Different parts of the tongue taste different things." The "tongue map" is a myth. Taste buds all over the tongue detect all the basic tastes.
- "There are only five senses." Five is the classic list, but balance and body position are senses too.
- "Eyes send out beams to see." Eyes don't give out light. We see when light from objects enters our eyes.
Quick quiz
The senses
Check what you know with 4 quick questions.
Question 1 of 4
Which sense organ do you use to hear?
Practise it
Try it
Do a blindfold taste test with a few foods and hold your nose for half of them. Then explore the rest of the human body.
Senses and body activities
For grown-ups
Related topics
The human body
The human body is made of trillions of cells that form organs, such as the heart, lungs and brain. Organs work together in systems that keep you moving, breathing, eating and thinking.
Light
Light is a form of energy that travels in straight lines, very fast. We see things when light from them enters our eyes, either because they make light or because they reflect it.
Sound
Sound is made when something vibrates. The vibrations travel through air, water or solids to our ears. Sound cannot travel through empty space.
Digestive system
The digestive system is the long tube and organs that break food down into tiny pieces your body can absorb for energy and growth, then get rid of what is left as waste.
Healthy eating
Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods from all the main food groups, with plenty of fruit and vegetables and water to drink, so your body gets everything it needs to grow.
The heart
The heart is a muscle about the size of your fist that pumps blood around your body, carrying oxygen and food to every cell and taking waste away.