Sensation And Sensitivity

Each stimulus present outside of our body emits a certain amount of physical energy that is ultimately responsible for producing some effect in one or the other sensory organs of our body. For example, is working as a stimulus for producing some effects on our sense organs. It has a particular size and shape, colour and texture and its letters reflect a particular pattern. This effect produced on our sense organs for enabling us to become aware or conscious of the nature of a particular stimulus is known as sensation and the quality or tendency of a sense organ to help us in feeling some or the other type of sensation is known as sensitivity.

We as human beings neither respond indiscriminately nor are we capable of becoming aware or conscious of each and every stimulus available in our environment. We do not have the same power of smelling as our dog has. We can't see in the dark but our cat is capable of doing so. Similarly the light or sound waves that are beyond our sensation can be successfully caught by our television set. Not only in terms of detection but also in terms of discrimination we have our limitations. The degree to which we are capable of detecting a stimulus or discriminating between two or more stimuli for finding out the difference, we are said to be sensitive or are attributed to possess sensitivity to that stimulus or that difference.