Daniel Harper: Graduate Student

I am a first-year graduate student in the Behavioral Neuroscience Program.  I finished up my undergraduate studies in May of 2007, majoring in psychology here at UNC.  As an undergrad, my research focused on tactile texture perception, including 1) how the perception of texture differs depending on whether surfaces are felt directly (with the fingertip) or indirectly (through a hand-held stylus) and 2) how texture perception can be affected when a painful stimulus is presented to a nearby location on the hand.  My current research focuses on temporal summation and mechanisms whereby people can become sensitized or desensitized to pain by way of top-down processing. Go Heels!!!

Publication:

Hollins M, Lorenz F, Harper D. (2006). Somatosensory coding of roughness: The effect of texture adaptation in direct and indirect touch. Journal of Neuroscience, 26; 5582-5588.