Biology, Eighth Edition (Raven)

Chapter 45: Sensory Systems

Learning Outcomes

• Describe how stimulation, transduction, transmission, and interpretation are necessary for neurosensory communication in the central nervous system.
• Differentiate between interoception and exteroception and indicate the simplest kind of receptor found in each.
• Briefly review how receptor potentials are formed as related to a generalized sensory receptor.
• Describe receptors that detect temperature, pain, touch and pressure, muscle length and tension, and blood pressure.
• Compare the senses of taste and smell in aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates.
• Describe the chemoreceptors that sense chemical characteristics of body fluids.
• Explain the purpose for and the operation of a fish’s lateral line system.
• Compare the invertebrate and vertebrate sensors responsible for gravity and angular acceleration.
• Compare hearing in fishes and terrestrial vertebrates.
• Understand how the structures of the middle and inner ear result in the sense of hearing.
• Describe the nature of vision in terms of its stimulus, biochemistry, the structure of rod and cone cells, and the mechanical design of the vertebrate eye.
• Explain sensory transduction as it occurs in vertebrate photoreceptors.
• Understand how vision in prey animals differs from vision in their predators.
• Illustrate the unique sensory systems that have evolved in response to specific aquatic and terrestrial habitats.