Ri Lates: Touch and go

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

It's all in your head: True stories of imaginary sensations

Most of us accept the way our heart flutters when we set eyes on the one we secretly admire, or the sweat on our brow as we start the presentation we do not want to give. But few of us are fully aware of how dramatic our body's reactions to emotions can sometimes be. As many as a third of men and women visiting their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained. Join consultant neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan for a journey through the very real world of psychosomatic sensations.

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.

Whole 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.

Drop in activities

Touching experiment

Join a team of psychologists from University College London to get 'hands-on' with experiments exploring affective touch.

Animal senses

How do animals feel compared with us? The Royal Veterinary College will be here with some plastinated cat and fish specimens to explain.

Phantom pain

Neuroscientist Tamar Makin and her team's research focuses on how the brain re-organisesitself when someone loses a limb. See demos and experiments from the team that show how our brain makes sense of tactile information.

Please note

This event is for over-18s only. If you look younger than 21, you may be asked for ID at the door.