Divyush Khemka, PhD.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

University of Cambridge

Keywords: Autism, Social cognition, Self-other control, Imitation, Empathy, TMS

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge. My work focuses on the outcomes of autistic people in the domains of health, healthcare and social functioning.

Prior to joining the ARC, I was a Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science where I was course leader on the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science program.

I completed my PhD from the Department of Psychology at King's College London, supervised by Dr. Caroline Catmur and Prof. Geoffrey Bird. My doctoral research, funded by the 2018 King's College London departmental studentship, focused on a neurocognitive process called 'self-other control' which refers to the ability to regulate representations of self and others in the imitation and empathy domains. This project aimed to answer the following questions:-

Is self-other control social-specific or does it rely on domain-general mechanisms?
Does the right temporoparietal junction play a domain-specific role in regulating self-other representations in the imitation and empathy domains?
Does self-focus modulate imitation-specific processes or does it instead modulate spatially compatible responding?
Does self-other control mediate the ingroup racial bias effect in empathy for pain?

PUBLICATIONS

Khemka, D., Ahmadilari, N., Bird, G., & Catmur, C. (2021). Imitation in one’s own presence: No specific effect of self-focus on imitation. Acta Psychologica, 212, 103194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103194
Sowden, S., Khemka, D., & Catmur, C. (2021). Regulating mirroring of emotions A social-specific mechanism? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 174702182110497. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218211049780

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Khemka D., Bird, G., Catmur, C. (June 2021). The role of the right temporoparietal junction in self-other control in empathy. European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN), Budapest (Online).
Khemka, D., Ahmadilari, N., Bird, G., Catmur, C. (January 2021). Imitation in one's own presence: No specific effect of self-focus on imitation. Experimental Psychology Society, London (Online).
Khemka, D., Ahmadilari, N., Bird, G., Catmur, C. (April 2020). Imitation in one's own presence: No specific effect of self-focus on imitation. Experimental Psychology Society, Kent (Conference was cancelled due to COVID-19).
Khemka D., Bird, G., Catmur, C. (January 2020). The nature of self-other control processes in social cognition: Domain general vs specialised mechanisms. Experimental Psychology Society, London.
Khemka, D., Bird, G., Catmur, C. (November 2019). “The effect of TMS to the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) on self-other empathic processing. From self-knowledge to knowing others” workshop, Brussels, Belgium.

INVITED TALKS

Khemka, D. (February 2022). Self-other control processes in empathy. Invited talk at the social brain lab, Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience.
Khemka, D. (October 2021). The role of the right temporoparietal junction in self-other control: A TMS study. Invited talk at the social cognitive neuroscience lab, University of Iowa, USA.

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