There is a good explanation of this in Raymond Murphy's book:
Which you can pick up at amazon.com...
Sense verbs are:
hear, feel, listen to, see, watch, smell, taste, sense
Some more examples:
I heard the lightning crackling, I listened to the rain falling all night, I felt my hands shaking, I saw the sun rise, I smelled the bacon frying, I sensed my sister arriving.
Taste is a tough one to use in this sense: I tasted the chocolate running down my chin. Compare that to this: I tasted the chocolate which was running down my chin.