It’s suspected that typical people have well over 5 senses; seems that Autistics would have even more than NTs.
Sharks have seven distinct senses. Yet scientists are now thinking that humans — autistic or not — have way more than the traditional five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch/tactile and taste/gustatory.
When we spend hours staring at screens, it’s easy to forget that our bodies are constantly processing more than just images and noise.
If we slow down, we notice textures under our fingertips, tension in our neck and shoulder muscles, or the softness of our kitty’s or puppy’s fur against our hands as they lie in our lap.
Autistic people can experience the world, through the five classic senses, in a much more heightened way — and though this can range from annoyance to impaired quality of life, sometimes it can also be a wonderful experience.
For all neurotypes, ordinary moments are filled with sensory experiences. In the morning, you might feel the zing of mouthwash, hear and feel the water running in the shower and take in the scent of a fresh bar of soap.
Rethinking the Traditional Five Senses
Scientists now believe humans may have dozens of distinct senses. Nearly everything we experience is multisensory.
Sight, sound, smell and touch don’t operate in isolation; they combine into a single, unified perception of the world and our bodies.
This may bring to mind an uncommon phenomenon known as synesthesia.
People who experience this mixing or overlapping of the main senses are called synesthetes.
It’s estimated that 6% of neurotypical people have synesthesia, while 18% of autistics have it. Examples:
- Hearing color
- Tasting shapes
- Seeing sounds
How many senses do humans actually have?
Professor Charles Spence from Oxford’s Crossmodal Laboratory estimates that people may have between 22 and 33 senses.
As incomprehensible as this seems, we definitely do not have the iconic lateral line that sharks possess.
This is a neural line that runs the length of their bodies that can detect movement, vibrations and pressure changes through water from over 300 feet away: a distant touching of a prey animal.
Imagine having a lateral line: feeling your boss’s distinct vibrations approaching from way down the corridor; time to put away your videogame and get back to work!
As for the senses beyond the common five that scientists have identified in humans, these include proprioception, which lets us know where our limbs are without looking. This is crucial in sport and exercise.
Balance depends on the vestibular system in the ear, combined with sight and proprioception.
Other senses include interoception, which detects changes inside our bodies like heart rate or hunger.
Insufficient interoception is more common in autistic people than in neurotypicals; for example they may not properly sense hunger — though keep in mind that most people with autism don’t have this problem.
Another sense is that of agency, the feeling that we are controlling our own limbs. Stroke patients can lose this sense and feel like someone else is moving their arm.
There’s also a sense of ownership. Some stroke patients feel that a limb isn’t their own, even though they can still feel sensations in it.
Taste Is Actually a Combination of Senses
Traditional senses often involve multiple systems. Touch, for example, includes pain, temperature, itch and tactile sensations. Taste, as well, is multisensory: It blends gustation (taste), smell and touch.
Gustation involves receptors on the tongue for salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.
But complex flavors — like chocolate, strawberry or mint — aren’t just combinations of these five tastes. We perceive them through a mix of taste, smell and texture.
Most of what we consider “taste” comes from smell. This is why when your nose is plugged up from a cold and you can’t detect odors, you also can’t taste.
It’s why when you plug your nose with your fingers while eating, you can’t taste — something that many people have done as kids when their mothers made them eat unpalatable vegetables.
Touch also contributes, shaping preferences — or aversions — for foods that are runny, firm, velvety or gooey.
An intense aversion to certain food textures is more likely in autism, to the point where someone may have a gag reflex upon trying to eat foods of the offending texture.
Seeing Sensory Illusions for Yourself
At the Senses Unwrapped exhibition in London’s King’s Cross, visitors can explore how senses interact and why they sometimes deceive us.
For instance, the size-weight illusion uses curling stones of different sizes but equal weight.
People often feel the smallest stone is heaviest — until they check the scale.
Another example of sensory illusion is the well-known phenomenon of thinking there’s more food on a plate if the plate is smaller.
This is why for weight loss, people are often told to put food on a small plate.
How many senses do autistic people have?
It may very well be that many autistic individuals have more senses than do neurotypicals. Those extra senses have yet to be truly identified.
But what’s known for sure is that typically, those on the spectrum experience senses more intensely — not necessarily all five in one person, but perhaps maybe one or two just come on stronger, or, to put another way, the autist is “extra sensitive” to certain experiences with a particular sense.
This explains why some autistics find the cleaning supply aisle at stores overwhelming, what with the scents of chemical cleaners and detergents.
Fluorescent lighting could trigger headaches, and in my case, human breath has evoked a gag reflex, as I find it awful when even mild, and brutal when strong (such as someone nearby at the gym breathing and exhaling through their mouth; it’s almost enough to drop me).
Many autistics can hear sounds that others can’t, or, if it’s noise that others can hear also, it’s difficult for the autistic to tolerate — while neurotypicals don’t mind at all or hardly notice.
