Editing Tiffany 16 (section)

==Automaton Sensory Apparatus==
Mechanical linkages are not fast enought to provide accurate sight, but there is a simpler solution.
Motive fluid can move but it can also "see" becuase of a number of different kinds of photosensitive microorganisms that make up motive essence.  An automaton's "eye" is a series of lenses that focus an image on the motive essence and directly processed by it, much like a modern computer processes informaton from a fiber optic cable. 

So the basic abilities of motive essence are motion (albeit ever so slightly), the ability to respond to pressure, (IE the sense of touch), and the sense of vision. 
 
So no smell or taste - yet.
But with some tweaking there can be various artifical organs that function as sensors.
The simplist case would be a air quality alarms used in mining automatons. It is a simple bag of bacteria that flashes when the air quality dips below a certain piont. The automaton has a designated "eye" that watch for this flash.  So technically it "sees" ordors but it is functionally the same.  More complex sensors are available on advanced models.  Some simpler models may not be as good as deciphering the data and say, "It smells blue." (Note: Real world "scintillation" counters for measuring radiation function on exactly this principle.)

Keep in mind taste and smell are very similar.  For the sake of argument we can define them as "smell" and "smell on contact."  Some chef automatons have particularly acute smell/taste sensors installed on their fingertips so they can taste by poking the food.