People

Lab

Emily Long - D.Phil Student

I am primarily interested in the processes behind making mental state inferences, known as theory of mind. Across the course of my MSc and DPhil, I hope to find out how we represent the minds of others and use that information to infer what they are thinking.

I take an additional interest in the ways that these processes might go wrong in disorders which affect social cognition. I hope to explore the ways in which different conditions affect theory of mind and empathy, with a view to elucidating the differential impacts of autism and alexithymia.

My work is funded by an ESRC studentship.

Becci Davis - D.Phil Student

I am primarily interested in how our current understanding of anxiety in autism can be further specified, particularly in children and adults who may struggle to self-report on the nature of their anxiety. I am currently working on novel experimental methods of measuring intolerance of uncertainty in this group. My research is funded by a kind donation to support autism research.

Leora Sevi - D.Phil Student

I am interested in how we understand other people's characteristics and their emotional states. In particular, I study how the two relate and why abilities might differ across people and depending on the person being interpreted. I also consider how we integrate other sources of information (e.g., the situation) during emotional inference, and how this process might be conceptualised within a predictive coding framework. My previous work investigated hypotheses within this framework regarding the role of interoception in emotion perception. My research is funded by a Medical Sciences Division Studentship.

Dr David Plans - D.Phil Student

My early research focused on computational intelligence approaches to understand and classify emotion in music making, which forced me to examine the psychophysiology of play, flow and stress. Having built technology (apps+sensors) that attempts to measure stress and interoception in neurotypical adults, I am now investigating the influence of interoceptive awareness on stress, as well as aspects of organisational behaviour surrounding empathy and vulnerability. I'm most interested in whether training interoceptive awareness through digital forms of biofeedback could contribute to better stress resilience and foster empathy, currently building pilot studies to test the feasibility of these ideas in large populations.

Kiera Adams - D.Phil Student

My research focuses on interoception, which is our ability to perceive and interpret bodily signals, such as our heartrate. I am interested in exploring interoception as an etiological mechanism contributing to the development of psychopathology, especially eating disorders and anxiety disorders. In particular, I focus on the role of interoception in explaining the significant overlap between these conditions and autism and alexithymia. My DPhil is funded by a Clarendon Scholar Award and a Medical Sciences Division Studentship.