My wedding ring hurts no more!

The principles illustrated here are the sensory adaptation and the senses of the skin. The text says that our senses are built to respond to change and contrast in the environment. When stimulus is constant or unchanging sensation tends to fade. Nerve cells (receptors) get tired and therefore, fire less frequently. So a “fitting” ring will feel as if nothing is on the finger.

But on the flip side, we can never get used to extreme or intense stimuli, and hence, can’t adapt to such stimuli. And just as in the case of a toothache or a strong odor, a very tight ring will produce very intense stimuli which we would be incapable of adapting to. Thus, we will not be able to ignore the tight ring as this will now cause a throbbing pain.

The skin not only protects our insides but also lets us identify objects that we can tolerate and those that we cannot. The basic senses of the skin include touch, warmth, cold and pain; nerve fibers in the skin are responsible for sensing these variations. Therefore, a fitting ring will fall under the basic sense of touch, while a tight ring will fall under that of pain.

Our brain is programmed to respond differently in these two cases of extreme and less frequent sensation as a survival mechanism. To begin with, we need to be able to ignore such unimportant sensations such as the fitting ring in our finger but, at the same time, be able to respond to extreme sensations such as a throbbing pain, a strong odor of gas leaks, and so on. Without this sensory adaptation, we would not be able to survive hazardous environmental conditions.

The text on the topic of sensory adaptation concludes by saying that the brain does require a minimum amount of sensory stimulation in order to function normally.

Notes:

Except where noted, the ideas in this article are adopted from a course text book (below) for general discussion purposes

Wade, C., & Tavris, C. (2011). Invitation to Psychology. 5 ed. New York: Prentice Hall.