It is because our brain is able to store information in such a way that it can be retrieved by different senses. This multi-sensory integration allows us to form mental images of the world and underpins our conscious awareness.
It turns out that the ability to recognise objects across different senses is present in the tiny brains of an insect.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London and Macquarie University in Sydney have published new work in the journal Science showing that bumblebees can also find objects in the dark they’ve only seen before.
In the light, but barred from touching the objects, bumblebees were trained to find rewarding sugar water in one type of object (cubes or spheres) and bitter quinine solution in the other shape.
Read more at Queen Mary University of London
Image: A bee solving the task of recognising the same shape (a sphere) in darkness when it could feel but not see the shapes. Credit - Lars Chittka