Martha Flanders

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Martha Flanders is a leading researcher in haptic perception and sensorimotor control, with a focus on how the human nervous system integrates touch and movement to perceive shape, length, and orientation. Her work explores the mechanisms underlying active touch—how we gather and synthesize kinesthetic and tactile information during exploratory hand and arm movements. In her highly cited 2004 paper, "Haptic Synthesis of Shapes and Sequences" (37 citations), Flanders demonstrated how subjects reconstruct multisided shapes from sequential haptic cues, revealing the brain’s ability to integrate spatial and temporal information. Her 2010 study (21 citations) on somatosensory comparison during haptic tracing further illuminated the role of memory and error correction in active sensing. Flanders also investigated predictive control in contour following (2013) and the multiple factors influencing haptic perception of length and orientation (2011). Her research has profound implications for robotics, prosthetics, and rehabilitation, advancing our understanding of how touch guides interaction with the environment. Through meticulous experiments using robotic manipulanda and virtual objects, Flanders has shaped the field of haptics, offering insights into the predictive and integrative processes that underlie everyday manual exploration.