Final answer:
Sensory receptors play a major role in helping us learn about our environment by converting stimuli into electrochemical signals that are processed and integrated in the central nervous system. This leads to conscious perception and may result in a motor response.
Step-by-step explanation:
A major role of sensory receptors is to help us learn about the environment around us, or about the state of our internal environment. Stimuli from varying sources, and of different types, are received and changed into the electrochemical signals of the nervous system. This occurs when a stimulus changes the cell membrane potential of a sensory neuron. The stimulus causes the sensory cell to produce an action potential that is relayed into the central nervous system (CNS), where it is integrated with other sensory information—or sometimes higher cognitive functions—to become a conscious perception of that stimulus. The central integration may then lead to a motor response.