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My research interests relate to Nonverbal Communication and Deception Detection.

My focus is on uncovering the diagnostic value of the non-conscious nonverbal behaviours that people do when communicating, especially when they are attempting to lie and/or mislead others.

The current focus of my work is to improve the abilities of others to accurately detect deception by investigating which nonverbal cues are relevant to deception detection and under what circumstances they can be used. My work considers the importance of the type of lie that is told, the circumstances surrounding the situation, as well as factors that may affect the detection process.

During my MSc in Social Cognition I focused on embodiment and social acuity by studying the effect that adopting either a "closed" or "open" body posture would have on correctly recognizing facial expressions of emotion and detecting deception in others. This work allowed me to uncover novel methods of improving accuracy of lie detection as well as improve our understanding of how people use social information to make judgements about others.

My PhD focused on uncovering the importance of emotional and cognitive cues with relation to deception detection, attempting to understand the usefulness of these cues and their limitations. My research also expands to areas of body postures, particularly the effect they have on the person adopting specific postures when interacting with others, as well as differences in judgements and decision making made alone or in groups.