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Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
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Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex....

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

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The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at...

Parallel Processing

Parallel Processing

The brain processes sensory information rapidly due to parallel processing, which involves sending data across multiple neural pathways at the same time. This method allows the brain to manage various sensory qualities, such as shapes, colors, movements, and locations, all concurrently. For instance, when observing a forest landscape, the brain simultaneously processes the movement of leaves, the shapes of trees, the depth between them, and the various shades of green. This enables a quick and...

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 24, 2025

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Published on: June 3, 2013

Sub-cortical areas process physical size but not numerical value.

Tali Leibovich-Raveh¹

¹Department of Mathematics Education, University of Haifa, Education Building Room 305, Abba Khoushy Ave, 199, Haifa, Israel. talil@edu.haifa.ac.il.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

|May 3, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The brain processes physical digit size in early visual areas, before numerical value. This size congruity effect (SiCE) involves prestriate areas for size but not number processing.

Keywords:

Numerical cognition Stroop-like task Subcortical areas

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Perception
Numerical Cognition

Background:

The size congruity effect (SiCE) shows physical digit size and numerical value interact.
Prestriate areas are early visual processing regions.
The role of prestriate areas in SiCE is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the involvement of prestriate areas in processing physical size versus numerical value of digits.
To test the hypothesis that physical size processing begins in prestriate areas, while numerical value processing occurs later.

Main Methods:

Adult participants performed digit comparison tasks (size or value).
Digits were presented to the same or different eyes to manipulate prestriate area involvement.
Response times were measured to infer processing locus.

Main Results:

Slower response times were observed when stimuli were presented to different eyes, but only for physical size comparisons.
This indicates that prestriate areas are involved in processing physical size, not numerical value.

Conclusions:

Initial processing of physical digit size occurs in prestriate areas, preceding numerical value processing.
This suggests distinct neural pathways for basic visual features and learned symbolic representations.