Research summary
I'm an autism researcher at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, studying cognitive differences in the autistic mind through the lifespan (especially adolescence), using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques. I'm interested in the universality, specificity and sufficiency of mentalizing differences and of a local processing bias in explaining the core behaviours that define autism, and whether an implicit mentalizing impairment can account for the specific profile of differences in other domains too - lying, laughter, smiles, bilingualism, executive function, intergroup bias, mental health... to name a few. The ultimate aim is to understand autism better in order that evidence-based support can be developed that targets the source and makes a real difference.