The five senses guide human beings in performing many different operations. Through the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, humans are able to interact with the world around them. Among the most important senses is the ability to see and hear, which will be the main focus of this paper. These two senses aid human's ability to learn new material. Although these senses help people to have contact with the world, everyone's senses are different and can vary among different individuals.
The brilliant philosopher Aristotle had many ideas about sense perception. It is quite interesting because there was very little research and technical knowledge about the organs and how they work biologically. However, with little scientific evidence Aristotle's views greatly resemble today's understanding of sense perception. Aristotle elaborates on all of the senses, but his main focus is on visual perception. He breaks down how a human sees things using form and matter. Matter, he explains, is what the object consists of, while form is what type of shape the object takes. Aristotle believes that when a person views something they actually adopt the form of that object. He states " when once the sense-organ has been acted upon, it is similar and has the same character as the sensible object." This idea is the basis to Aristotle's theory on how sense perception operates.
The sensus communis is located in the heart and receives any perception that a human may have. Aristotle believes that these perceived messages is sent to this region and is interpreted. Similar to today's research Aristotle also states that sensus communis only judges these perceptions. Each person interprets in their own way, so this system is only a way to judge. In comparison to today's theory only a few corrections can be made. Instead of the heart, research has now shown that the brain is in fact the judge of perception.