This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. This concise scientific primer turns sensation into a window on the mind, tracing how psychology grew from ancient philosophy into a modern science by making sensory experience one of its most defensible subjects. It begins with the basic elements of perception—color, sound, taste, smell, and touch—and shows that these "simple" sensations are usually woven into richer moments of everyday life. From there, the book moves into physiology, explaining how the eye, ear, tongue, and skin respond to physical stimuli, why measurements of color, temperature, and odor must still be tied to subjective experience, and how the senses can misfire in paradoxical ways, from ringing ears to seeing stars. The text then explores touch, taste, and smell in depth, revealing how pressure, cold, warm, pain, heat, and wetness arise from specialized receptors, how taste is often confused with smell, and how the four basic tastes vary across the tongue. It also examines vision's astonishing range, from the eye's millions of hues to color blindness, rods and cones, and the shift between daylight and night vision. Throughout, the book argues that perception is a blended, highly organized process, culminating in striking experiments on localization and brain injury that show how carefully sensation must be studied.

À propos de l'auteur

Adams, Grace Kinckle

Grace Kinckle Adams was an American writer and educator whose work reflected a deep concern with health, self-understanding, and practical guidance for everyday life. Active in the early twentieth century, she belonged to a generation of authors who believed that clear, useful knowledge could improve both individual well-being and society at large. Adams is best remembered for her accessible nonfiction writing, which translated complex ideas into plain language for general readers and helped make subjects often treated as technical or intimidating feel approachable. Her work focused on the body, the mind, and the importance of paying attention to one’s own sensations and habits, themes that remain strikingly relevant in an age still searching for trustworthy health information and balanced self-care. What gives her writing lasting value is its blend of clarity, empathy, and practicality: she wrote not to impress, but to help readers understand themselves more fully and live more thoughtfully. Though not always widely known today, Adams occupies an important place in the history of popular educational writing, especially for readers interested in the intersections of health, women’s writing, and early public education. She will particularly appeal to readers who enjoy overlooked literary figures, the history of wellness and self-help, and books that aim to make knowledge genuinely useful in daily life.