Department of Experimental Psychology

Mismatching Expressions: Spatiotemporal and Kinematic Differences in Autistic and Non‐Autistic Facial Expressions Preliminary studies suggest there are differences in the facial expressions produced by autistic and non-autistic individuals. However, it is unclear what specifically is different, whether such diff...

Great news🚨Our article "Mismatching expressions: spatiotemporal and kinematic differences in autistic and non-autistic facial expressions" is published in Autism Research⭐ Thanks to Jennifer Cook, Sophie Sowden & Holly O'Donoghue. Check out the thread below for a summary
doi.org/10.1002/aur.... 🧵1

📢 Announcing the winners of our 2025 Emerging Leaders Prize! 📢

Thanks to our generous donors, the award winners will be able to further their research into the underfunded area of children and young people's mental health, as well as developing their careers 👏

👉 Read more: https://bit.ly/4qK85co

Active disambiguation guides inferring controllability and cause in social interactions - Nature Communications In social settings, people need to establish how much they contribute to shared outcomes. Here, the authors show that people strategically alter their actions to establish their level of control and i...

🌟 Overall, our study provides novel insights into the mechanistic and neural basis of how humans perceive their control in social contexts.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@oxexppsy.bsky.social @medsci.ox.ac.uk

Congratulations to Dr Adam Al-Diwani, Dr Alex Lau-Zhu and Dr Felicity Waite who have been named as the NIHR Oxford Senior Research Fellows from our BRC.

The programme offers 2 years of flexible support and leadership development to accelerate high‑impact research.

🔗 tinyurl.com/bdhawpsh

Well done Pin-Chun! Thanks also to @oxexppsy.bsky.social,
@oxcin.bsky.social, and @erc.europa.eu

Sir Paul Nurse officially opens the Life and Mind building The Life and Mind building, a £200 million world-class teaching and research facility, has been officially opened by Sir Paul Nurse, Principal Group Leader, The Francis Crick Institute, President Elect of the Royal Society, and 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine.

NEWS: Sir Paul Nurse officially opens the Life and Mind building

The Life and Mind building is one of the largest building projects in the University’s history, and home to @biology.ox.ac.uk and @oxexppsy.bsky.social, as well as @ineosoxford.bsky.social

An image of Professor Clare Mackay, Professor of Neuroscience, with a quote from her saying: "Many of us with BFRBs know that shame plays a huge role, so it is no surprise that it shows up strongly in this group. What is important is that we have demonstrated that shame is already prevalent in young people aged 13-18, and that it strongly relates to depression and anxiety.”

🔊NEW RESEARCH: Shame plays a major role in hairpulling, a type of body-focused repetitive behaviour (BFRB), among young people, according to a study by @ox.ac.uk

Read more 👉 tinyurl.com/ajjxz7rz

@claremackay.bsky.social @pollywaite.bsky.social #BFRBs @acamh.bsky.social @oxhealthbrc.bsky.social

Congratulations to Dr Sage Boettcher! 👏🌟💫

How do we decide to reach out and make friends?

My PhD work on this question is out today in @pnas.org 🎉

Study done in collaboration with the incredible
@mirunarascu.bsky.social, @sorcha-hamilton.bsky.social, Ingrid Yu, and my two amazing supervisors, Matthew Rushworth and @mkflugge.bsky.social👇

Photo from from the Award Ceremony with Professor Gavin R. Screaton, Head of the Medical Sciences Division.

Honoured to receive the Teaching Excellence Award at University of Oxford after my 1st year with the university

The real credit goes to the students: teaching such talented minds is a privilege

📸 Thanks to my lovely colleague, Kate Nation
@ox.ac.uk @oxexppsy.bsky.social @magdalenoxford.bsky.social

Professors Kate Nation and Laurence Hunt with their certificates

Congratulations to Professors Kate Nation and Laurence Hunt (@oxexppsy.bsky.social) on receiving well-deserved Excellent Teacher Awards from @ox.ac.uk, recognising their inspiring, inclusive, and innovative teaching - a testament to the outstanding academic community at St John’s!

Could you be the Deputy Director of our new Oxford Centre for Emerging Minds Research? Exciting (permanent) opportunity to push forward research that has a meaningful impact on children, adolescents and families
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

@oxexppsy.bsky.social @oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social

JCPP Advances | ACAMH Child Development Journal | Wiley Online Library This study found that parent internalising symptoms predicted internalising symptoms in younger children, with no evidence of child-driven effects. Among adolescents, mental health symptoms showed bi...

In this paper we examined how the mental health of parents and offspring related to each other over time during the #COVID19 pandemic. TLDR: It differs markedly with child age doi.org/10.1002/jcv2...

@acamh.bsky.social
@pollywaite.bsky.social
@oxexppsy.bsky.social
@oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social

Find out more here: youtu.be/KDp7NrhuJrs
#DLDDay #YouCantSeeDLD #SupportiveEnvironmnets #Neurodiversity @oxfordsparks.bsky.social

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Research from our department, led by Dr Sinziana Oncioiu, explored why some adolescents with DLD experience more bullying victimisation than their peers without DLD @sinzianaoncioiu.bsky.social

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YouTube video by OxfordSparks Decoding Developmental Language Disorders and Peer Victimisation in Young People

Today is Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day #DLDDay

DLD is a hidden but common disability that affects 1 in 14 people causing difficulties understanding and using language for no known reason.

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Exterior view of the Life and Mind building

NEW: The Life and Mind Building is now open 🎉

Home to @biology.ox.ac.uk, @oxexppsy.bsky.social and @ineosoxford.bsky.social, the building will bring together 1,400+ researchers and students to tackle global challenges – from mental health to climate change.

[1/7]

JCPP Advances | ACAMH Child Development Journal | Wiley Online Library This study found that shame is a significant mediator in positive associations between hairpulling severity and depression and anxiety severity within a community sample of adolescents with clinical ....

New paper with @claremackay.bsky.social led by MSc student Talia Mayerson on the role of shame in the adolescent hairpulling and co-occurring anxiety and depressive symptomology: acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/....
Summary below:

"Researchers and practitioners may assume that their priorities are the same as patient priorities for research; nevertheless, these priorities are often somewhat mismatched.”

DPhil student David Sher has identified the research priorities for people with severe paranoia for the first time.

📢 Our systematic review, led by Bomikazi Lupindo, is out in BJPsych International!

We examined how school and community violence affect adolescents’ mental health in Sub-Saharan Africa.

#YouthMentalHealth @topicgroup.bsky.social @oxexppsy.bsky.social

📄Read full article here ➡️ bit.ly/424I4tT

📣A milestone for child mental health research

Prof Cathy Creswell, OH BRC Theme Lead, will co-lead Oxford’s new Centre for Emerging Minds advancing research to support youth mental health, thanks to a £27m gift from The Paul Foundation.

🌐 tinyurl.com/yvrb3tn4

🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans.

Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning.

Very happy to share my first preprint from @oxexppsy.bsky.social @oxneuro.bsky.social ! We (me + co-first authors @lilweb.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social + PI @mkflugge.bsky.social + many others) used transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation (TUS/tFUS/LIFU) of the human amygdala ... (1/15)

📢📢 We are hiring 3 postdocs to join us in our new Oxford Centre for Emerging Minds Research on an exciting new project to develop a strengths-based assessment toolkit to support neurodivergent children and young people:
  
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... 
 
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

£27 million gift funds new Oxford Centre for Emerging Minds Research focused on young people’s mental health Oxford University will create a pioneering mental health research centre for children and families with £27 million from The Paul Foundation.

Oxford University will create a pioneering mental health research centre for children and families, thanks to a £27 million gift from The Paul Foundation @cathycreswell.bsky.social @oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social

www.psy.ox.ac.uk/news/ps27-mi...

Identifying research priorities for severe paranoia We talk to lead author David Sher about his paper, which aimed to establish potential research priorities for understanding and treating severe paranoia for the first time.

NEWS: Identifying research priorities for severe paranoia

David Sher talks about his latest paper looking at the top 15 research priorities of people with persecutory delusions (severe paranoia) and their carers. @oxexppsy.bsky.social‬ and @oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social‬

www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/...

🔍 Practitioner Psychologists (incl. 2nd/3rd yr Trainees): Have you experienced indirect trauma exposure through work?

We're running a short survey to understand its impact.

📝 psychiatryoxford.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

@ox.ac.uk @oxexppsy.bsky.social

Today we have Sage Boettcher @dynacog-lab.bluesky.social & Dejan Draschkow @abclab.bsky.social (@oxexppsy.bsky.social) in our #psychology dept. colloquium @unimarburg.bsky.social with talks on how International dynamics drive behavior & immersive memory! Join us in Gutenbergstraße18 (Dekanatssaal)

YouTube video by Mental Health in Development Introducing the WISDOM Research Network for Schools

📣 Schools wanted!
Is your school passionate about mental health? Join the WISDOM Research Network to get involved in research + access carefully curated mental health resources.
🎥 Watch our video:
youtu.be/7Z5y6CvNcH8
It is free to join and take part! Let’s make a difference, together!

Michael Barry

We're pleased to announce that Michael Barry has been awarded the Valeria Frighi Intellectual Disabilities Research Award. Michael is a trainee on the Oxford Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology.

Read more about how he will use the funding: tinyurl.com/mvvh646d