| ESP | Extra-Sensory Perception |
|---|---|
| LR | Light Perception |
| CP | candle power; capillary pressure; cardiac pacing; cardiac performance; cardiopulmonary; caudate puta... |
| DPR | drug price review; dynamic perception resolution |
| DSP | decreased sensory perception; delayed sleep phase; desmoplakin; dibasic sodium phosphate; digital si... |
| tactile organ | Any one of the sensory end organs. Synonym: organum tactus, tactile organ. (05 Mar 2000) |
|---|---|
| tactile sense | 1. To come in contact with; to hit or strike lightly against; to extend the hand, foot, or the like, so as to reach or rest on. "Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear Touched lightly." (Milton) 2. To perceive by the sense of feeling. "Nothing but body can be touched or touch." (Greech) 3. To come to; to reach; to attain to. "The god, vindictive, doomed them never more- Ah, men unblessed! to touch their natal shore." (Pope) 4. To try; to prove, as with a touchstone. "Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed." (Shak) 5. To relate to; to concern; to affect. "The quarrel toucheth none but us alone." (Shak) 6. To handle, speak of, or deal with; to treat of. "Storial thing that toucheth gentilesse." (Chaucer) 7. To meddle or interfere with; as, I have not touched the books. 8. To affect the senses or the sensibility of; to move; to melt; to soften. "What of sweet before Hath touched my sense, flat seems to this and harsh." (Milton) "The tender sire was touched with what he said." (Addison) 9. To mark or delineate with touches; to add a slight stroke to with the pencil or brush. "The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right." (Pope) 10. To infect; to affect slightly. 11. To make an impression on; to have effect upon. "Its face . . . So hard that a file will not touch it." (Moxon) 12. To strike; to manipulate; to play on; as, to touch an instrument of music. "[They] touched their golden harps." (Milton) 13. To perform, as a tune; to play. "A person is the royal retinue touched a light and lively air on the flageolet." (Sir W. Scott) 14. To influence by impulse; to impel forcibly. " No decree of mine, . . . [to] touch with lightest moment of impulse his free will," 15. To harm, afflict, or distress. "Let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee." (Gen. Xxvi. 28, 29) 16. To affect with insanity, especially in a slight degree; to make partially insane; rarely used except in the past participle. "She feared his head was a little touched." (Ld. Lytton) 17. <geometry> To be tangent to. See Tangent. 18. To lay a hand upon for curing disease. To touch a sail, to keep the ship as near the wind as possible. To touch up, to repair; to improve by touches or emendation. Origin: F. Toucher, OF. Touchier, tuchier; of Teutonic origin; cf. OHG. Zucchen, zukken, to twitch, pluck, draw, G. Zukken, zukken, v. Intens. Fr. OHG. Ziohan to draw, G. Ziehen, akin to E. Tug. See Tuck, Tug, and cf. Tocsin, Toccata. 1. The act of touching, or the state of being touched; contact. "Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting." (Shak) 2. <physiology> The sense by which pressure or traction exerted on the skin is recognised; the sense by which the properties of bodies are determined by contact; the tactile sense. See Tactile sense, under Tactile. "The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine." (Pope) Pure tactile feelings are necessarily rare, since temperature sensations and muscular sensations are more or less combined with them. The organs of touch are found chiefly in the epidermis of the skin and certain underlying nervous structures. 3. Act or power of exciting emotion. "Not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Do strongly speak to us." (Shak) 4. An emotion or affection. "A true, natural, and a sensible touch of mercy." (Hooker) 5. Personal reference or application. "Speech of touch toward others should be sparingly used." (Bacon) 6. A stroke; as, a touch of raillery; a satiric touch; hence, animadversion; censure; reproof. "I never bare any touch of conscience with greater regret." (Eikon Basilike) 7. A single stroke on a drawing or a picture. "Never give the least touch with your pencil till you have well examined your design." (Dryden) 8. Feature; lineament; trait. "Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, To have the touches dearest prized." (Shak) 9. The act of the hand on a musical instrument; bence, in the plural, musical notes. "Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony." (Shak) 10. A small quantity intermixed; a little; a dash. "Eyes La touch of Sir Peter Lely in them." (Hazlitt) "Madam, I have a touch of your condition." (Shak) 11. A hint; a suggestion; slight notice. "A small touch will put him in mind of them." (Bacon) 12. A slight and brief essay. "Print my preface in such form as, in the booksellers' phrase, will make a sixpenny touch." (Swift) 13. A touchstone; hence, stone of the sort used for touchstone. " Now do I play the touch." "A neat new monument of touch and alabaster." (Fuller) 14. Hence, examination or trial by some decisive standard; test; proof; tried quality. "Equity, the true touch of all laws." (Carew) "Friends of noble touch ." (Shak) 15. The particular or characteristic mode of action, or the resistance of the keys of an instrument to the fingers; as, a heavy touch, or a light touch, also, the manner of touching, striking, or pressing the keys of a piano; as, a legato touch; a staccato touch. 16. The broadest part of a plank worked top and but (see Top and but, under Top,), or of one worked anchor-stock fashion (that is, tapered from the middle to both ends); also, the angles of the stern timbers at the counters. 17. That part of the field which is beyond the line of flags on either side. 18. A boys' game; tag. In touch, outside of bounds. To be in touch, to be in contact, or in sympathy. To keep touch. To be true or punctual to a promise or engagement; hence, to fulfill duly a function. "My mind and senses keep touch and time." (Sir W. Scott) To keep in contact; to maintain connection or sympathy;-with with or of. Touch and go, a phrase descriptive of a narrow escape. True as touch (i.e, touchstone), quite true. Origin: Cf. F. Touche. See Touch. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| auditory perception | The process whereby auditory stimuli are selected, organised and interpreted by the organism; includes speech discrimination. (12 Dec 1998) |
| visual perception | The selecting and organizing of visual stimuli based on the individual's past experience. (12 Dec 1998) |
| perception | <psychology> The conscious mental registration of a sensory stimulus. Origin: L. Percipere = to take in completely (18 Nov 1997) |
| gradient perception | <cell biology> Problem faced by a cell that is to respond directionally to a gradient of, for example: a diffusible attractant chemical. In a spatial mechanism the cell would compare receptor occupancy at different sites on the cell surface, a temporal mechanism would involve comparison of concentrations at different times, the cell moving randomly between readings. In pseudospatial sensing, the cell would detect the gradient as a consequence of positive feedback to protrusive activity if receptor occupancy increased with time as the protrusion moved up gradient. Few cell types have been unambiguously shown to detect gradients. (18 Nov 1997) |
| gravity perception | Process whereby a bodily structure or organism (animal or plant) receives or detects a gravity stimulus. The sensing may be direct or indirect and may or may not initiate a reaction to the stimulus. (12 Dec 1998) |
| weight perception | Recognition and discrimination of the heaviness of a lifted object. (12 Dec 1998) |
| colour perception | The visual awareness of any particular hue or achromatic colour. (12 Dec 1998) |
| pitch perception | A dimension of auditory sensation varying with cycles per second of the sound stimulus. (12 Dec 1998) |
| motion perception | The real or apparent movement of objects through the visual field. (12 Dec 1998) |
| simultaneous perception | A combination of two slightly dissimilar images into a single image. (05 Mar 2000) |
| size perception | The sensory interpretation of the dimensions of objects. (12 Dec 1998) |
| social perception | The perceiving of attributes, characteristics, and behaviours of one's associates or social groups. (12 Dec 1998) |
| space perception | The awareness of the spatial properties of objects; includes physical space. (12 Dec 1998) |