sense-specific
|sense-spe-cif-ic|
/sɛns spəˈsɪfɪk/
specific to a sensory modality
Etymology
'sense-specific' originates from Modern English by combining the noun 'sense' and the adjective 'specific'. 'sense' ultimately comes from Latin 'sensus' (from 'sentire', meaning 'to feel'), and 'specific' comes from Latin 'specificus' (from 'species', meaning 'kind, form').
'sense' passed into English via Old French 'sens' and Middle English 'sense' from Latin 'sensus'; 'specific' entered English from French 'spécifique', which derived from Latin 'specificus'. These elements were later combined in Modern English to form the compound 'sense-specific'.
The compound originally and straightforwardly meant 'specific to a sense' and has retained a technical sense in fields like psychology and neuroscience as 'specific to a sensory modality'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the property or degree of being specific to a particular sense or sensory modality (often used in research contexts as 'sense specificity').
Researchers evaluated the sense specificity of neural responses to determine whether they were visual or auditory.
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Adjective 1
pertaining to or limited to a particular sensory modality (for example, vision, hearing, touch).
The experiment showed a sense-specific improvement: participants improved only on the visual task.
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Last updated: 2025/10/21 08:35