Event description
Haptic technologies recreating the sense of touch have revolutionised everything from robotics to medical training. Explore all aspects of touch from neuroscience and perception to virtual reality with talks and activities throughout the Ri. And play with the latest technologies!
Talks
7:15 to 7:45pmWhole body haptics We may be very used to technologies that respond to the touch of our fingers, or that interact with our hands in some way. But how about your whole body interacting with haptics? Recent advances are helping this happen and Hiroyuki Kajimoto will show how whole-body haptics enrich reality, affect the feeling of presence and emotion, and induce feelings related to motion.
8:15 to 8:45pm It’s all in your head Consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan will take us on a journey through the very real world of psychosomatic illness. She will take us from the extreme -- from paralysis, seizures and blindness -- to more everyday problems such as tiredness and pain. Meeting her patients, she encourages us to look deep inside the human condition. There we find the secrets we are all capable of keeping from ourselves, and our age-old failure to credit the intimate and extraordinary connection between mind and body.
9:15 to 9:45pm Understanding Touch: Sensation, Computation, and Engineering A longstanding goal of engineering research has been to create technologies that can reflect the amazing perceptual and motor capabilities of biological systems for touch, including the human hand. We are far from achieving this, partly because of our limited understanding of what our skin, our largest sensory organ, feels when we touch objects in the world. Yon Visell will describe the challenges in understanding our skin and showcase research results which can inform the development of new technologies for wearable computing, virtual reality, and robotics.
Drop in activities
Touching experimentJoin a team of psychologists from University College London to get 'hands-on' with experiments exploring affective touch.
Please note
This event is for over-18s only. If you look younger than 21, you may be asked for ID at the door.