The power of our senses

摘要

Sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch - how do our perceptive faculties compare to those of other animals? Human Senses producer Sam Roberts sniffs out some sensational evidence. Most of the time, when we look around us, it feels as if we're passiveobservers and that vision is just a rather dull process of gathering facts about the world. But our eyes, ears and noses are constantly lying to us - selecting, ignoring, enhancing and distorting what's going on. Like all animals, our senses have evolvedto highlight only vital aspects of what's going on - the things that are important to us, for our particular way of life. We're tuned to be most sensitive to the things that matter and to ignore the rest. We assume our senses give us a complete and accurate picture of the world, but nothing could be further from the truth.