Sorry for the confusing title, but earlier when I was sipping some coffee I felt the heat emanating off of the liquid in the cup without touching the cup.
So it made me think, why don’t we treat heat sensitivity as a distinct sense to touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing? I’d love to hear a catchier name for ‘temperature sensitivity’ for its distinct sense as well, since those other ones are less of a mouthful.
Thank you for coming to my shower thought!
You’re physically touching molecules of air and water vapor that got heated up by the cup. And also physically touching infrared photons emitted by the cup. The sensation of hot and cold is technically the sensation of receiving or losing energy of your body particles jiggling around.
That said, the other commenters are also right in that “touch” is just a catch-all term for all the different types of receptors our skin has