What does special sensation include?

• A. Gustation and olfaction only
• B. Vision, hearing, gustation, olfaction, balance
• C. Temperature and pain
• D. Touch and proprioception

Answer: (B)

Special sensations involve senses that rely on specialized organs and dedicated neural pathways to the brain. These include vision, hearing, taste, smell, and balance. Each of these uses specialized receptors and circuits (for example, photoreceptors in the eye for vision, hair cells in the inner ear for hearing and balance, taste buds for gustation, and olfactory receptor neurons for smell) that route to specific brain areas for processing. Temperature and pain, as well as touch and proprioception, are part of somatic or general senses because they use a broader set of receptors and shared pathways rather than the highly specialized systems of the classic five senses. So the group that counts as special sensations is vision, hearing, gustation, olfaction, and balance.