Abstract
The field of general sensory physiology is concerned with the principles underlying the sensory abilities of humans and animals. This general approach is possible and useful because the various sense organs closely resemble one another in organization and function, in their connections to centers in the brain, and in the reactions they elicit. Moreover, for all sense organs there is the problem of “objective” and “subjective” aspects. We can observe and analyze the performance of a human or animal sense organ by the same procedures as in research on the circulatory system, for example; in so doing, we are studying objective sensory physiology. But we can go further and apply scientific analysis to our own sensations, produced by environmental phenomena with the mediation of the sense organs, and in this we can also draw upon the analogous experiences reported by other people. Here we are in the area of subjective sensory physiology. One of the basic concerns in general sensory physiology is to analyze these two aspects and evaluate their interdependence.
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Dudel, J. (1983). General Sensory Physiology. In: Schmidt, R.F., Thews, G. (eds) Human Physiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-96714-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-96714-6_8
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