Our Sense of Touch: Two-Point Discrimination
Our Sense of Touch: Two-Point Discrimination
Description:
In this lesson, students learn how to investigate the touch sensory system and discover how to plan and carry out their own experiments. In the "CLASS EXPERIMENT," students find that the ability to tell that two points rather than just one are pressing on the skin depends on two things: the density of skin sensory receptors and the connections that the sensory nerve cells make in the brain. They learn basic facts about sensory receptors and nerve connections, and use their estimates of receptor density to predict the size of the brain areas devoted to input from different skin regions. In "TRY YOUR OWN EXPERIMENT!," students design their own experiments, investigating, for example, how touch information is important in motor tasks, or whether additional sensory input can interfere with two-point discrimination.
Education Levels:
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Subject:
Body Systems And Senses, Biological And Life Sciences
Resource Type:
Lesson plan
Medium:
Text/HTML
Fee Status:
Free
Beneficiary:
Students
Online provider:
University of Washington
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