Dr Hannes Saal

School of Psychology

Senior Lecturer

Photo of Hannes P Saal
Profile picture of Photo of Hannes P Saal
h.saal@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6504

Full contact details

Dr Hannes Saal
School of Psychology
F05
Pam Liversidge Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

I am a Cognitive Scientist and run the Active Touch Laboratory. I studied Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück, Germany and then obtained my MSc and PhD in Neuroinformatics at the University of Edinburgh. I was then a postdoctoral scholar in Sliman Bensmaia’s lab at the University of Chicago, before joining the University of Sheffield to set up my own lab. For most of my career I have worked on the sense of touch, using methods from computational neuroscience, robotics, and machine learning.

Qualifications
  • BSc Cognitive Science (Osnabrueck, Germany)
  • MSc Neuroinformatics (Edinburgh)
  • PhD Neuroinformatics (Edinburgh)
Research interests

I work on mathematical models of sensory coding and perception; my main research area is the sense of touch, where I use human psychophysics, computational modelling, and applied machine learning in order to elucidate the fundamental computations allowing us to make sense of our environment through touch.

Publications

Show: Featured publications All publications

Journal articles

Conference proceedings papers

  • Edmondson L, Jimenez-Rodriguez A & Saal H (2019) Nonlinear scaling of resource allocation in sensory bottlenecks. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 19) (pp 7543-7552). Vancouver, Canada, 8 December 2019 - 14 December 2019. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download

All publications

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

  • Corniani G, Lee Z, Carre MJ, Lewis R, Delhaye BP & Saal HP (2022) Imaging Sub-surface Skin Strain Patterns During Fingertip Sliding. HAPTICS: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, APPLICATIONS, EUROHAPTICS 2022, Vol. 13235 (pp 358-361) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Edmondson L, Jimenez-Rodriguez A & Saal H (2019) Nonlinear scaling of resource allocation in sensory bottlenecks. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 19) (pp 7543-7552). Vancouver, Canada, 8 December 2019 - 14 December 2019. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Davis-Berg EC, Sachar C, Callier T, Saal HP & Bensmaia SJ (2014) Dynamic adaptation of exploratory movements for texture perception. INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, Vol. 54 (pp E49-E49) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Saal HP, Heess NMO & Vijayakumar S (2011) Multimodal Nonlinear Filtering Using Gauss-Hermite Quadrature (pp 81-96) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Saal HP, Jo-Anne Ting & Vijayakumar S (2010) Active estimation of object dynamics parameters with tactile sensors. 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 18 October 2010 - 22 October 2010. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Saal HP, Ting JA & Vijayakumar S (2010) Active sequential learning with tactile feedback. Journal of Machine Learning Research, Vol. 9 (pp 677-684) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Strohmayr MW, Saal HP, Potdar AH & van der Smagt P (2010) The DLR touch sensor I: A flexible tactile sensor for robotic hands based on a crossed-wire approach. 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 18 October 2010 - 22 October 2010. RIS download Bibtex download

Posters

  • Edmondson L, Saal H & Jimenez-Rodriguez A NeurIPS 2019 poster: Nonlinear scaling of resource allocation in sensory bottlenecks. RIS download Bibtex download

Datasets

Preprints

Research group

Neuroscience and Cognition

Active Touch Laboratory

Grants
  • Innovate UK (2023-24): PathStance - Transforming a simple, prescribed NHS wearable, into a sensor-rich, at-home rehabilitation device. Smart Grant. With Matt Carre and Claire Brockett (Mechanical Engineering).
  • Leverhulme Trust (2022-2025): The computational origins of the cortical homunculus. Research project grant. Principal Investigator.
  • EU Horizon 2020 (2019-2023): NeuTouch - Understanding neural coding of touch as enabling technology for prosthethics and robotics. Innovative Training Network. With Tony Prescott (Computer Science) and EU-wide consortium.
Teaching activities

I am the course director for our MSc programmes in Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, as well as Cognitive Neuroscience and Human Neuroimaging.

I currently teach PSY6308 - Computational Neuroscience 2 and PSY6309 - Mathematical Modelling and Research Skills.

Professional activities and memberships

I am a member of:

Sheffield Robotics

Insigneo Institute for in-silico Medicine

Neuroscience Institute

PhD Opportunities

I am happy to receive applications for PhD study in my area of research.

We advertise PhD opportunities (Funded or Self-Funded) on FindAPhD.com

For further information, please see the department PhD Opportunities page.