the ways we are different....

[lagilman]

Conversation last night turned to the senses, and what we considered our strongest/most dominant sense, the one that sends information faster, stronger, often more annoyingly than the others. For K, it was sound -- she admits that she recognizes people by their voice, not their faces. D. didn't fess up, but I suspect it's sight. For me -- smell, to the point that I will cross the street to avoid a Lush store because it's like being assaulted every time the door opens (too much, too strong).

How about all y'all? Examples and discussions welcome in comments.


[Poll #1308582]

Comments

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

I respond most strongly, but intermittently, to smell. Also, certain combinations of temperature, air pressure and humidity can send me into a pretty deep memory fugue -- an autumn wind of just the right sort will put me back at 15 in a New England prep school in an incredibly visceral way, for example.

On a more ordinary basis, I am almost utterly visual.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know, other than to say I know it's not sound since my ears are crappy. I think it depends on the situation. When I'm walking on the street, my sight is where I'm most alert. In the house, I might notice a weird smell before anyone else does.

[peggin.livejournal.com]

For me, it's the combination of sight and sound. The best way I can explain it is that, in my work, I pretty much continually have to take Continuing Professional Education (CPE) courses. There are seminars and lectures available, and there are also courses you can take on your own and mail in a completed test or transmit it over the internet to get your credit. I remember the information from these courses FAR better when I can simultaneously read and listen to it than I do when it is reading-only or lecture-only.

[ceosanna.livejournal.com]

I, too, respond most strongly to smells, but sound comes in a close second. Being able to intermittently hear the unusual hum of electronic devices can be annoying (particularly when I can't quite find what's making the noise), but being assaulted by unpleasant smells - like those on the D.C. metro - takes the cake.

Randomly, do you find that your sense of smell ratchets up at certain times of the month? Mine does, and I'm always sorely tempted to drive in rush hour traffic on those days rather than subject myself to nausea-inducing rides on the train.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Probably a congruence with the architect bit, but I'm a very visual person. I _remember_ sounds well, identify snatches of music from forty years ago and such, but hearing isn't the dominant sense. Just as well, because my mid-range hearing loss keeps getting worse . . .

[lagilman]

yeah, there's definitely a connect between dominant sense and what we do either for a living or as a hobby -- the connection between a strong sense of smell and food/wine is so obvious it's silly....

(I'm a very visual person, far more so than aural, which is why I turn to books before television, and IM/email over telephone.)

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Smell by a landslide, and it's just a good thing I was home last night when Mum bumped a knob on the stove and accidentally turned the gas on... {sigh}

[corvidophile.livejournal.com]

mostly sound with some scent mixed in. i have extremely sensitive hearing and quite sensitive smell. most music is physically painful unless its in the lower registers and if i don't have the sniffles myself, i can even sometimes smell the sick on a person (a very odd sour smell depending on how sick they are).

drives the hubby insane when i keep asking if "can't you HEAR THAT?%*(&*&@!!!" or "omg i can smell "X".. can't you smell that?" :D

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time deciding. I can tell that nearly all of my senses are diminished from their youthful potency, but I don't know that any particular one was ever truly dominant.

Maybe I'm just insensate. :)

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

Used to think it was sight, but it's sound. I need a certain amount of silence daily or I go insane. Part of the introvert thing. I cannot listen to music for extended periods. I would rewrite my notes in college and hear the professor's voice in lecture, but have only a fuzzy sense of what s/he looked like giving it.

Recognize voices before faces. The sound of geese flying overhead fills me with an aching joy.

But they are linked. I no idea what band or song names are, because I never saw the names while I was listening to them (radio generation). I have to hear and see to cement things in memory. Sound alone, sight alone doesn't do it.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

>>hear the professor's voice in lecture

Ditto. Not just what they said, but the rhythm and cadence of their speech.

Sound is my dominant input. I have a very good visual memory for some things--book covers, for instance, or signs. But most visual details escape me--I don't notice what people are wearing and while I can describe the outside of someone's house (which goes under "how to find it") I'm lousy at describing how they furnished or decorated it inside.

[controuble.livejournal.com]

I respond not-at-all to smell - the result of having 7.5 ounces of blood clots removed from my head at the tender age of 2-1/2 months. I think I was 7 or 8 yrs old before I realized other people could smell. You should have seen my HS biology teacher trying to explain smell to me - like trying to explain red to someone who has been blind from birth.

[lagilman]

*nod* I have a friend whose sense of smell is so limited he's also effectively taste-dead. Never, ever get into a hot-sauce contest with him...

[controuble.livejournal.com]

I am definitely NOT taste-dead. The old saying "You can't miss what you never had" seems to apply. I may not notice subtle differences, but I have very firm likes and dislikes as far as flavors go. Also, I am always right when the blindfold and clothespin-your-nose taste-tests between a piece of raw potato and a piece of apple - same texture, VERY different flavors if you're used to tasting without a sense of smell. Freaked out my junior-high science teacher - he couldn't figure out how I was getting it right EVERY time.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Ever since I got my nose broken in high school (softball in the face the night before graduation, those pictures are pretty lemme tell ya :P), I have had a very limited sense of smell. Hasn't affected my taste at all, though, which I've also found curious since I thought the two were inextricably linked.

My primary sense is definitely sound. I guess since I work in the music industry that follows ... :) I was labeled an "auditory learner" when I was in school, if I read it in a book it didn't really stick until the topic was discussed in class. I still recognize people by their voices before their faces.

[sourceoftrouble.livejournal.com]

I remember the biology class where they unwrapped the specimen and the class was passing out, but you kept replying "No, I can't smell it".

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

It's a tie between sight and smell. My sense of smell is very strong compared to most people. I often detect scents before other people are aware of them.

Emotionally, sight is my strongest sense, despite myopia. My most visceral responses often come from what I see. It's why there's so much art in my home, why I've been carrying my camera with me more.

[kradical.livejournal.com]

I went with other, because it's hard to answer. I react very strongly to smell, but I tend to react most quickly to sight, and I react very strongly to sound even though my hearing sucks rocks. And, of course, taste is very important.

I can't narrow it down. *laughs*

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

For me, it's text. Which is kind of like sight only a subset. If I know what I'm looking at, especially reading the written word, then sight works quickly, but if I don't, it takes a while. But after text, sight in general is probably still my most dominant sense.

[cedunkley.livejournal.com]

Smell for me, for good and bad. Certain odors do invoke memories, and I always smell a new food before tasting it.

That said, because of allergies (and asthma) avoiding certain things is key. Back when I lived in the City* I used to make trips from Fifth Avenue (by the Empire State Building) over to a software company in the Garment district to pick up software updates. Cutting through Macy's was always quickest (and preferred during the winter) route but I used to hold my breath through that one stretch of their perfume center lest I end up watery eyed and sniffly by the time I made it back outside.

* the City is, of course, NYC.

Not exactly what I would have chosen

[signeh.livejournal.com]

As my hearing has continued to worsen, my senses of smell and touch have compensated. This surprises me, as I would have expected my sight to have compensated more than it has. Increased senses of smell and touch are not entirely a blessing - most elevators, public transit vehicles, and public restrooms affect me the way Lush stores affect you, and I've recycled clothes that were just too scratchy to wear anymore.

[theantijoss.livejournal.com]

I never EVER forget a face -- I can even seen someone I knew from childhood and haven't seen in years, all grown up, and still recognize them.

But if you ask me their names? Yeah, that's just not happening.

The weird thing about that is, I don't *think* visually, if you know what I mean. I tend to think verbally, not in sound, but in words. I have a terrible time with visualization. If you tell me to to visualize a bird, I'm gonna see the word "bird" in my head.

I have no idea what all of this means. :D

[camille-is-here.livejournal.com]

I use sight mostly for not bumping into things too often. I can't recognize faces at all--once called my son "sir" because I didn't recognize him and was trying to get past him to find him! We were out for a walk together and passed through a crowd. I lost sight of him for a minute, and that was all it took.

I rely mostly on sound, and can identify my son by his cough. But touch is what I fall back on to be sure of something. It's why I pull away from people in crowds--information overload!

[jeniferj.livejournal.com]

I think I've read that science says it's smell, or that smell links strongly to memory, or some such... Some trainers like to use smelly (in a good way) markers or have candy and other good-smelling things on the tables at training.... I can't say I pay that much attention to smell, unless it's a bad smell... or some really good-smelling guys cologne :-D

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Kinesthesia and touch, usually in that order.

Synesthesia adds complications.

[lagilman]

I can imagine so, yeah....

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

I said smell but now I'm wondering if it should be taste since I'm such a picky eater. *g*

[lagilman]

what, you mean you didn't just do that to drive me crazy?

(interestingly, nobody has picked taste yet, I don't think. I suspect that's because we stopped trying to put everything into our mouths when we were about five, and yes I know I just gave someone a perfect line just waiting to be bent... consider it an early holiday present....)

[katfeete.livejournal.com]

This is actually a very hard question for me to answer, because I've come to realize that I react more strongly to most sensory input than most people. This may have something to do with the introversion, or maybe it's growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, or it may be something else entirely (Dan has claimed my family are all supertasters... I think we just weren't overexposed to a lot of bland, sugar/salt processed food). I overload easily and spectacularly, to the point of... er. Well. For years, I'd find myself becoming what I called "defracted" in any crowded or noisy situation. Basically it was like a minor out-of-body experience; I controlled my body, but had the distinct sense that I was outside of it, doing things by remote control, as it were. Malls were very bad for this. Eventually whoever I was with would notice this and stick me in the ornamental plant display until I recovered, but it was really quite unnerving.

Eventually, I chose sound, because I do seem to be more easily distracted or annoyed or responsive to sound. I used to have to move my digital alarm clock out of my room because it would wake me up with its ticking. (My brother swears I'm crazy on this one, but honest! The digital ones! They ticked! Somebody seems to have fixed this in the newer models, thank god.)

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

I have an annoyingly acute sense of smell. I'm very visual, too, but smells hit me on a visceral level, capable of triggering memories, or warning me that the gas is leaking long before anyone else notices. Getting trapped in an elevator at a con on Sunday morning with a really ripe con-goer is a very unhappy experience.

Hearing would come a close second. Being subjected to noises I can't control, like a neighbor's late night party, or late night con party thumping in the room above, can trigger anxiety attacks. On the other hand, a walk in the forest at night is a delight.