Gregory J. Gerling

About

Gregory J. Gerling is a Professor in Systems Engineering based in Charlottesville, Virginia. His professional focus includes haptics, computational neuroscience, human factors, and biomechanics. He leads the Gerling Touch Lab, which involves research and mentorship of postdoctoral researchers and PhD students working on topics such as haptics, computational neuroscience, biomechanics, and related fields. Professor Gerling's work integrates multiple disciplines to advance understanding and applications in touch perception and human-machine interaction.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer vision
• Psychology
• Communication
• Cognitive psychology
• Mathematics
• Neuroscience
• Social psychology
• Geometry

Selected publications

• The Language of Social Touch Is Intuitive and Quantifiable

  Psychological Science · 2022 · 58 citations

  = 16), these standardized expressions were conveyed by trained senders and were readily understood by strangers unacquainted with the senders. Thus, the possibility emerges of a standardized, intuitively understood language of social touch.

  DOI

• An individual's skin stiffness predicts their tactile discrimination of compliance

  The Journal of Physiology · 2023-11-09 · 28 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Individual differences in tactile acuity have been correlated with age, gender and finger size, whereas the role of the skin's stiffness has been underexplored. Using an approach to image the 3-D deformation of the skin surface during contact with transparent elastic objects, we evaluate a cohort of 40 young participants, who present a diverse range of finger size, skin stiffness and fingerprint ridge breadth. The results indicate that skin stiffness generally correlates with finger size, althou…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An elasticity-curvature illusion decouples cutaneous and proprioceptive cues in active exploration of soft objects

  PLoS Computational Biology · 2021 · 25 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Our sense of touch helps us encounter the richness of our natural world. Across a myriad of contexts and repetitions, we have learned to deploy certain exploratory movements in order to elicit perceptual cues that are salient and efficient. The task of identifying optimal exploration strategies and somatosensory cues that underlie our softness perception remains relevant and incomplete. Leveraging psychophysical evaluations combined with computational finite element modeling of skin contact mech…

  DOI

• Identifying 3-D spatiotemporal skin deformation cues evoked in interacting with compliant elastic surfaces

  2020 · 18 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  We regularly touch soft, compliant fruits and tissues. To help us discriminate them, we rely upon cues embedded in spatial and temporal deformation of finger pad skin. However, we do not yet understand, in touching objects of various compliance, how such patterns evolve over time, and drive perception. Using a 3-D stereo imaging technique in passive touch, we develop metrics for quantifying skin deformation, across compliance, displacement, and time. The metrics map 2-D estimates of terminal con…

  DOI

• PIEZO2‐dependent rapid pain system in humans and mice

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2023-12-02 · 9 citations

  preprintOpen access

  The PIEZO2 ion channel is critical for transducing light touch into neural signals but is not considered necessary for transducing acute pain in humans. Here, we discovered an exception - a form of mechanical pain evoked by hair pulling. Based on observations in a rare group of individuals with PIEZO2 deficiency syndrome, we demonstrated that hair-pull pain is dependent on PIEZO2 transduction. Studies in control participants showed that hair-pull pain triggered a distinct nocifensive response, i…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CRCNS: Neural Representations of Object Compliance in the Periphery

  NIH · $990k · 2017–2022

• Peripheral Mechanisms Governing Tactile Encoding During Normal Target Remodeling

  NIH · $2.5M · 2010–2018

• CHS: Small: Understanding the Percept of Soft Objects for Designing Naturalistic Touch Displays

  NSF · $508k · 2019–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Ellen A. Lumpkin

  University of California, Berkeley

  20 shared

• Steven C. Hauser

  University of Virginia

  16 shared

• Bingxu Li

  15 shared

• Håkan Olausson

  Linköping University

  15 shared

• Ian C. Sando

  St. Vincent Carmel Hospital

  13 shared

• Chang Xu

  University of Virginia

  12 shared

• Geb Thomas

  University of Iowa

  11 shared

• Saad S. Nagi

  Linköping University

  10 shared

Labs

• Gerling Touch LabPI

  Haptics, computational neuroscience, human factors, biomechanics

Awards & honors

• Senior Member of the IEEE
• Co-chair of the IEEE Haptics Symposium for 2018 and 2020
• Co-editor of the IEEE World Haptics Conference in 2017 and 2…
• Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Haptics
• Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Haptics

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• Laura Barnesh-32
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