A few years ago, I wrote my book Life in Five Senses, about how to make our lives happier by connecting with our five senses. What a joy it was to write that book!

One of the most interesting things I learned through my research is that our five senses regularly make adjustments and compromises among themselves.

For instance, when one sense shuts down, the others become more acute; lights dim for a concert, because we hear better in the dark; we close our eyes when kissing. I’m a fearful driver, and when I do drive, I turn off the radio so I can see where I’m going.

When one sense doesn’t give us as much information as we want, we can recruit other senses to fill in the gaps. For instance, by listening closely to changes in sound—such as the amount of sound, how sound reflects off surfaces, and the difference in time when a sound arrives at each ear—we can learn about the location and speed of objects with our ears instead of our eyes. When I couldn’t track the flight of an invisible bug that was pestering me, I could listen to try to find it.

In general, our senses are alert for change, because change might mean danger or opportunity. A bird’s flight catches my eye, but I don’t notice a rock on the ground. As soon as a sensation becomes familiar, we ignore it, so after a few moments, my skin will no longer register my cotton t-shirt, and the smell of sunscreen will fade.

I love the work of artist Andy Warhol—not so much his visual art, but his writings and interviews. I’d long been haunted by something he wrote in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), and because of my research for Life in Five Sentences, I finally understood the scientific basis of a striking observation he made.

He describes a time when he was walking through a Woolworth’s store with a friend, B. His friend wanted to speed through, and Andy Warhol asked, “Why are you rushing, B?” His friend replied, “That buzz is driving me crazy.” And here’s the line that I think of so often.

Warhol asked, “What buzz?” then explained in the text, “I listened and there was a buzz, probably a faulty air-conditioning system, but for me it was completely drowned out by the smell of roasted peanuts.”

It sounds so strange and unexpected, the way Warhol phrases his observation, that I’ve recalled it for years. But now I understand that his observation is quite reasonable. Andy Warhol, the genius, had noticed something that I’d never noticed until I studied the subject. That’s how our minds work: the buzz of a faulty air-conditioning system can be drowned out by the smell of roasted peanuts.