sensory processing
How brains interpret
Sensory processing is how the nervous system receives, organizes, and interprets information from the senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, balance, and body position.
The term appears most often in discussions of developmental differences: Children with sensory processing difficulties may be overwhelmed by loud noises or certain textures.
Sensory processing disorder describes atypical responses to sensory input.
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- hearingPerceiving sound waves
- visionAbility to see
- synapsesNeuron-to-neuron transmission points
- touchPerceiving through physical contact
cognition · hypersensitivity · habituation · fight or flight · neural pathways · taste · memory · thalamus · smell · vestibular system · learning · auditory · nervous · nervous system · signals · threshold · receptors · input
- child developmentbaby, toddler, newborn, infancy, milestones
- perceptionsee, vision, seeing, senses, observing
- processingrefining, purifying, conditioning, filtering, sorting
- sensessight, smell, taste, hearing, touch
- body functionsbreathing, digestion, heartbeat, circulation, respiration
- sensitivitysensitivity, sensitive, hypersensitivity, oversensitivity, hypersensitive
sensory processingmotor control
Regulation of bodily movement
motor response · executive function · motor coordination · voluntary movement · decision-making
sensory processingabstract reasoning
Thought using concepts alone
semantic processing · conceptual understanding · metacognition · meaning-making · sensory transduction
sensory processingimagination
Faculty for forming ideas
mental imagery · fantasy · hallucination · daydreaming · introspection