Plants do not. Plants may exhibit reactions to stimuli, and we sometimes interpret these responses as defensive behavior, but we're really talking about successful adaptations to their environment. Plants have neither nervous systems nor neuro-transmitting pain receptors.
Do Plants Have Feelings (Or Emotions)? No – unlike humans and non-human animals, plants do not have feelings. It is undeniable that a plant can respond to environmental stimuli, like turning towards the light or closing over a fly.
"Although people generally assume plants don't feel when they are being touched, this shows that they are actually very sensitive to it," said lead researcher Olivier Van Aken from the University of Western Australia.
Plants do not have pain receptors, which is a critical sign that plants do not experience pain in the same way that animals do. Yet the potential to feel pain cannot be inferred simply from the presence of pain receptors alone, specifically, sensory neurons such as nociceptors.
There is no evidence that plants have any physical defense response to potentially painful stimuli, mostly because they have no means to move away from pain or danger. Some evidence suggests they may have chemical responses, but this absolutely does not suggest they feel pain of any discernible kind.
“But some research shows that speaking nicely to plants will support their growth, whereas yelling at them won't. Rather than the meaning of words, however, this may have more to do with vibrations and volume. Plants react favourably to low levels of vibrations, around 115-250hz being ideal.”
Your plants really dislike when you touch them, apparently. A new study out of the La Trobe Institute for Agriculture and Food has found that most plants are extremely sensitive to touch, and even a light touch can significantly stunt their growth, reports Phys.org.
They conducted all sorts of experiments with plants – playing music, talking to plants, vibrations, etc. But their findings were discredited. Now fast forward nearly 50 years, and it has never been scientifically proven that plants have feelings.
Sessile – or stalkless – plants evolved to be incredibly sensitive to their environment in order to survive. Research into their awareness has revealed the incredible ways plants sense their environment: from "hearing" their predators, "smelling" their neighbours1and even "mimicking" the shapes of their plant hosts.
It's True—You Really Should Talk to Your Plants. In a study performed by the Royal Horticultural Society, researchers discovered that talking to your plants really can help them grow faster. 1 They also found that plants grow faster to the sound of a female voice than to the sound of a male voice.
In a Mythbusters experiment involving seven plants — two received positive speech, two received negative speech, one listened to classical music, another to death metal and the last was left in silence — the plant left in silence fared the worst. Surprisingly, the one to flourish the most was the death metal plant.
All organisms in natural circumstances, animals, plants and bacteria, are aware of changes in their environment and respond by changing behaviour.
Touch Triggers A Genetic Defense Response In Houseplants
Professor Jim Whelan, who led the research, said that even the slightest touch activates a major genetic defense response which, if repeated, slows down plant growth.
Instead of talking to the trees, try cuddling your favourite geranium. While flowers and other members of the plant kingdom seem not to complain when we pinch their buds or step on them, they are fully aware of what's happening and rapidly respond to the way they're treated, scientists have discovered.
Plants thrive when they listen to music that sits between 115Hz and 250Hz, as the vibrations emitted by such music emulate similar sounds in nature. Plants don't like being exposed to music more than one to three hours per day. Jazz and classical music seems to be the music of choice for ultimate plant stimulation.
Plants can sense and react to more aspects of their environments than we can, and they maintain bustling social lives by communicating with each other above and below ground. They also interact with other species.
The reason for this is that, despite the lack of any kind of cognition, plants have souls too, according to Aristotle's widely-accepted theory: trees and flowers nourish themselves, they grow, and propagate, and so they have what was usually called a vegetative soul.
Research has shown that plants are complex organisms that can feel, communicate and respond to their environment. In fact, plants can feel emotions too.
Evidence suggests that plants can behave intelligently by exhibiting the ability to learn, make associations between environmental cues, engage in complex decisions about resource acquisition, memorize, and adapt in flexible ways.
They can also sense matter from the above ground parts of the plant that have been washed down by the rain into the ground. Above ground plants smell each other. If plants smell ethylene they know other plants are nearby.
Just like with people, a plant might react differently to being touched. You can determine which plant won't mind a bit of cuddling based on their nature and where they typically grow. Indoor plants with broad leaves, such as Monsteras, Alocasias, and Pothos, enjoy occasional wiping.
Plants do not. Plants may exhibit reactions to stimuli, and we sometimes interpret these responses as defensive behavior, but we're really talking about successful adaptations to their environment. Plants have neither nervous systems nor neuro-transmitting pain receptors.
Although plants do not sleep in the same way that humans do, they do have more and less active times and they have circadian rhythms—internal clocks that tell them when it is night and when it is day. And like many people, plants are less active at night. When the Sun comes up, however, they awake to the day.