Dr Roberta Roberts

Contact details

Telephone: 0121 414 2780
Email: r.roberts@bham.ac.uk

Address: Ths School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Roberts is a research fellow whose interests are in studying touch perception in the hand. The sense of touch provides information about the shape, temperatures, textures, and materials of our environment. Touching is an active process, involving control of the movements and forces of the hands. Dr Roberts uses behavioural and psychophysical techniques to investigate the interactions between skin mechanics, exploration dynamics and the sense of touch in both young and older adults.

Qualifications

PhD in Psychology (2005)
Msc Cognitive Science (2001)
BSc Psychology and Artificial Intelligence (1997)

Research

Research interests

Tactile and Haptic perception, within and across the hands

Multisensory perception of material properties of objects

Psychophysics, motion and force measurement

Other activities

Member of the Experimental Psychology Society

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Roberts, RD, Li, M & Allen, HA 2024, 'Visual effects on tactile texture perception', Scientific Reports, vol. 14, no. 1, 632. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-50596-1

Roberts, RD, Loomes, AR, Kwok, HF, Wing, AM & Allen, HA 2023, 'Evidence for vibration coding of sliding tactile textures in auditory cortex', Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 17, 1282566. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1282566

Roberts, R, Loomes, A, Allen, H, Di Luca, M & Wing, A 2020, 'Contact forces in roughness discrimination', Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 1, 5108 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61943-x

Roberts, RD 2013, 'Roughness perception across the hands', Attention, perception & psychophysics, vol. 75, no. 6, pp. 1306-17. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0465-6

Roberts, R & Humphreys, G 2010, 'The Role of Somatotopy and Body Posture in the Integration of Texture Across the Fingers', Psychological Science, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 476-483. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610363405

Roberts, R & Humphreys, G 2010, 'Visual context and practice change the distribution of attention in touch.', Brain Research, vol. 1351, pp. 185-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2010.06.047

Roberts, R & Humphreys, G 2009, 'Tactile attention is distributed across the hands for the perception of roughness', Acta Psychologia, vol. in preparation.

Roberts, R & Humphreys, G 2008, 'Task effects on Tactile Temporal Order Judgments: When space does and does not matter', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 592-604. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.34.3.592

Jackson, C, Albert, N, Roberts, R, Galea, J & Swait, G 2007, 'Target selection: choice or response?', The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 27, no. 23, pp. 6079-80. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1454-07.2007

Roberts, R & Humphreys, G 2006, 'Sensory interactions in bilateral kinaesthesia', Perception & Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.1.65

Roberts, R, Humphreys, G & Wing, A 2005, 'Temporal constraints on interactions across kinaesthetic channels', Experimental Brain Research, vol. 164, pp. 529-540. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-005-2273-2

Roberts, R & Wing, A 2001, 'Making sense active touch', British Journal of Visual Impairment, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 48-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/026461960101900202

Chapter

Loomes, AR, Roberts, R & Allen, HA 2023, Measuring Touch Sensitivity in an Aging Population. in NP Holmes (ed.), Somatosensory Research Methods. 1 edn, Neuromethods, vol. 196, Humana Press, pp. 251-265. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3068-6_12

Wing, A, Giachritsis, C, Roberts, R & Pye, E 2007, Weighing up the value of touch. in The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Contexts.

Paper

Roberts, R, Wing, A, Durkin, J & Humphreys, GW 2003, 'Effects of posture on tactile temporal order judgements', Paper presented at Europhatics, Dublin, Ireland, 6/07/03 - 9/07/03.

View all publications in research portal