#70. Autism, Deception, and the Justice System - Tiegan Blackhurst

Can autistic adults lie—and detect lies—like everyone else? And what happens when the justice system misreads autism traits as deception?

In this episode, we sit down with Tiegan Blackhurst, a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University, to dive into her research on autism and deceptive communication. Tiegan breaks down how autistic adults navigate truth and lies, and how misunderstanding these behaviors in legal settings can lead to serious consequences.

💡 Topics covered:

• Can autistic people lie? (spoiler: yes!)
• How stereotypes around eye contact and “shifty” behavior hurt autistic individuals
• Real-world impacts: from police interactions to courtroom bias
• Why both police and the public need better training
• The "Prison Houdini" case and what it reveals

Transcript

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All right, everybody, welcome back to the Smooth Brain Society.

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Today,

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we'll be talking to Teagan Blackhurst,

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who is a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University.

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Her research focuses on how autistic adults produce and perceive deception.

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Her research hopes to help and protect autistic adults from future manipulation and

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to overcome potential biases in the criminal justice system.

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So welcome to the Smooth Brain Society, Teagan.

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Thank you.

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Thank you very much for inviting me.

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For those who are new, we always have a co-host on.

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Beth is back on as our co-host this time.

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So Beth, thank you for coming back.

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That's good.

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Hello, everybody.

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Glad you're back.

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And yeah, so let's get into it then, shall we?

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So Teagan,

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I guess the first question for you is,

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what inspired you into sort of studying this intersection between autism and

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deception?

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If you could tell us maybe a little bit of a recap of what autism is,

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although we had Dr.

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Callum Hartley on give a full episode on it,

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so people can check that out.

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but maybe a little bit of a background and then,

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yeah,

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what sort of shaped your interest in such research?

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Yeah.

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So I'll start with like the little background into autism and then how I got into what I do.

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So autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects currently 1% of the UK population.

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So it's a neurodevelopmental condition that people are born with and it is a lifelong condition.

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It's characterised by differences in social understanding,

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communication and interaction,

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as well as some differences in behaviour and interests.

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So it's a spectrum condition.

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And you might have heard the phrase,

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if you've met one person with autism,

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you've met one person with autism.

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characteristics that are common across the spectrum,

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but each person experiences characteristics to a different intensity and a

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different degree.

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For example,

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some autistic adults may have high intellectual ability and no difficulties with

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speech or language,

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whereas other autistic adults at the other end of the spectrum may have

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difficulties with language and intellectual abilities.

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I work with autistic adults and I'm very happy to be working in this field because

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As I mentioned,

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autism is a lifelong condition,

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but research kind of tails off after autistic people turn 18.

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And as we age and we go into adulthood,

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our personal relationships become much more complex,

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our interactions become more complex.

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And we still see that autistic adults have difficulties with social communication

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interaction past the age of 18.

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So as we age,

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We need to learn how to detect deception,

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how to tell lies,

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because although people tell you lying is wrong,

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it's also a social lubricant.

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Imagine a world where no one could tell a lie.

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Imagine how terrifying that would be.

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We'd all have no friends.

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We would have no friends left by the end of the week because white lies are just

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something that we all have to engage in.

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We all have to tell to allow us just to ease social relationships and interactions.

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So that's just a little bit about autism and adulthood and why I focus there.

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What inspired me to look at the intersection between autism and deception?

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I've always been interested in forensic psychology and I blame my mum because she

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brought me up watching Criminal Minds and every criminal show under the sun.

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And that led me to do a master's at Manchester in forensic psychology and mental health.

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And during my master's degree, we had a lecture on autism and the criminal justice system.

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And it was a very short lecture because unfortunately there's just not a lot out there.

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It seemed to be a large hole that people just weren't working in at that time.

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So after the lecture, I started to think about why this may be and what research is needed.

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And I conducted my master's dissertation on the perception of autistic defendants

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by non-autistic jurors.

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After this,

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I realised that this really was a passionate area of mine and I knew I wanted to

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complete a PhD in this area,

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but I wanted to work more collaboratively with autistic adults and actually conduct

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a project which aligned with the community's interests and needs.

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So I returned to what I call home, Lancaster University, contacted my supervisors

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and put together this project,

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which focuses on all stages of deceptive communication,

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right from sort of when do I lie?

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Why do I lie?

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All the way to how do I know if someone's lying to me?

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And a lot of the factors which influence our ability to lie also influence our

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ability to detect deception.

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So things like theory of mind,

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which is our ability to take the perspective of another person,

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executive functioning,

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so

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information processing, memory, metacognitive awareness.

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These are all really crucial factors in this deceptive communication process.

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But we know that some autistic adults experience differences and difficulties with

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some social cognitive factors.

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So I wanted to test whether autistic adults do experience these difficulties.

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To what extent?

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They may not.

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They may be able to detect deception at the same rate as non-autistic adults.

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We don't know.

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And nobody was looking at this at the time.

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And if autistic adults couldn't tell lies at the same rate as non-autistic adults

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or couldn't detect when they were being lied to,

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obviously this opens up the questions of manipulation and victimisation.

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So we wanted to create a project that would potentially maybe one day help protect

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the future interests of autistic adults in deceptive communications,

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both being able to lie and knowing when they're being lied to.

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That's really fascinating, Tegan.

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So basically, they can't lie and they struggle to tell when people are lying to them.

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And of course,

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if somebody is being manipulative,

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such as a detective who wants somebody to say something incriminating,

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that's a really scary thought.

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I guess the question I have is you've said that one of your first things you said

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was about you've met one person with autism.

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You've met one person with autism.

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So how,

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because there seems to be so much variations,

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how do you apply this across different people with autism in different ways?

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Can you maybe have different subtypes or can some people lie who have autism or

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some people be able to be deceptive?

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How do you kind of deal with that aspect?

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Um, so it's interesting that you say like can't lie and that is a big myth.

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So autistic people can lie, um, and can lie just as well as non-autistic people.

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Obviously,

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um,

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there's variation in ability to lie across all populations,

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neurodiverse and non-autistic.

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Um, so there are differences in ability to lie regardless of neurodiversity.

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but I focus on autistic adults with high intellectual abilities.

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So I focus on university students because I'm university myself,

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you know,

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access practicality reasons,

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but also to engage in deception is a cognitively demanding act,

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both to tell a lie and to be able to detect a lie.

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So there is a level of intelligence and executive functioning required to engage in

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that process in the first place.

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So for example,

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autistic adults with low intellectual abilities or other learning conditions that

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co-occur may not be able to engage in the deceptive process so I work with autistic

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adults who are at university will be able to engage in the deceptive communication

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process likely can interact socially with other students and we focus on everyday

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lives so a lot of people will focus on like really big

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sort of grand lies that you'd see on TV shows of like,

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I didn't do this,

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I didn't commit this crime.

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And whilst that's really important,

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the majority of lies that we tell or we need to identify are white lies.

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So I look at everyday lying.

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So what did you do last weekend?

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Can you lie about that?

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Can you lie about really small things?

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Or can you tell when someone is lying about these small things?

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Because those are the most common interactions that we have and that autistic

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adults will have with other people as well.

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And then because this is,

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I stress like an emerging research area,

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there's very,

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very little in here.

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we wanted to start at the ground level with the everyday lying see what differences

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were there and then potentially move on to looking at if these differences would be

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present in like high stakes lies which are the lies that have serious consequences

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so lying about committing a crime or or saying you didn't when you didn't and being

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accused of lying anyway so how would that look like in a study setting so what what

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were you doing what kind of white lies are you sort of comparing i guess

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So I have run a whole host of different studies to look at propensity to lie.

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We had autistic and non-autistic adults complete a lying scenario questionnaire.

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So we presented them with 12 scenarios that each referred to a different type of lie.

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So we looked at self-oriented lies,

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which are lies that we tell to protect or benefit ourselves,

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other oriented lies,

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which we tell to protect or benefit one other person.

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So, um,

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Now,

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if my friend asked me if I like their dress and I didn't,

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I'd lie and say,

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yes,

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that's a lie I'm telling to protect them.

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And we looked at Pareto-oriented lies, which are lies for the good of the group.

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That includes yourself.

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So if I was to lie to protect me and my friendship group, that would be a Pareto lie.

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So we asked autistic adults, how likely would you be to lie in these situations?

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How would you find that process?

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Would you be confident in your decision, guilty?

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Did you find it emotionally demanding?

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And we found that actually autistic and non-autistic adults would tell lies to a

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similar degree for self and other oriented lies,

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but autistic adults were significantly less likely to say that they would lie in

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group situations.

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So we were actually anticipating potentially some other differences when we first went in.

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Because to tell other lies,

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we have to take the perspective of that person,

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consider their thoughts and emotions.

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And we thought if some autistic adults experience difficulties with this

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perspective taking ability,

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they may not be able to engage as effectively or want to engage as commonly in that

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procedure.

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But they did.

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But for the group lying, we did see a reduction in propensity to lie.

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And we think this might be because of the social experiences of some of these

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autistic adults that we studied.

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group interactions it's known from research that autistic children spend more time

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alone so they have less experience interacting with larger groups and as such like

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anything if you have less experience in a certain social situation you may be more

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nervous you may be more concerned but actually I wouldn't know how to lie in that

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situation or I think if I tried I might not get away with it so autistic adults

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said they'd be less likely to try and lie in these situations and we think it might

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be related

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potentially to social experience or the fact that you have to take the perspective

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of many different people in a group situation,

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not just the one.

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So that potentially also may be an influencing factor there.

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So, yeah, we looked at the questionnaire for that.

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For looking at the deceptive behaviour and detecting deception,

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we created videos of autistic and non-autistic adults lying and telling the truth

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about what they did last weekend.

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videos for certain behaviours,

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and I can go into more detail about that later on if it comes up.

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And we then use these videos in another study about detecting deceptions.

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So we show them to autistic and non-autistic adults and we say, is this person lying?

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Why do you think so?

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And can you rate different aspects of their behaviour?

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And we're going to try and understand in that study

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If there is a difference in ability to detect deception,

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because we found that actually autistic and non-autistic adults can lie at similar

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rates,

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depending on the type of lie,

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but we don't yet know whether they can detect deception at the same rate.

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So there's two aspects that you said.

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The first one is if they can lie and they,

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from what I can tell,

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they find it harder when they're in a group kind of novel setting,

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which again relates back to the stuff you were saying about the criminal justice

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system.

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If they're being questioned by somebody they don't know, it's going to be easier.

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But I guess the deception is the next part is to see if that person is lying to

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them,

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how well they're going to.

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So are you still, is the deception part still ongoing?

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Yeah, so we're currently analysing the data for the detecting deception study.

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All my studies are called such similar things that sometimes it's hard.

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And what do you,

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like,

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so the kind of application for,

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I guess,

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the real world application,

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where do you suspect this kind of,

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especially with that study where you've got the results from,

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what do you expect that will,

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how will that kind of help autistic people?

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Yeah, so we're hoping to situate a lot of our findings in the criminal justice system.

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So although we don't,

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you know,

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we're not working with a forensic sample,

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a lot of the outcomes and implications that we're drawing relate to autistic people

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in general.

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So we know that autistic people are seven times more likely to interact with the

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criminal justice system as victims,

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witnesses or defendants.

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So they are at an increased risk of interacting with legal professionals.

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So we want to make sure that legal professionals understand autistic people.

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They are aware of the different deceptive behaviours because people are very, very poor.

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at detecting deception.

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So lay people, students, the average accuracy rate is around 54%.

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So you might as well just flip a coin.

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You know, it doesn't matter.

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If you try and think about it, you're still going to be wrong probably.

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And what is worrying is that legal professionals don't perform much better.

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So they are still near chance level.

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And this includes police, lawyers and judges.

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And it's because detecting deception is really hard.

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You know, we are, we have such ingrained stereotypes into what deceptive behavior looks like.

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I'm sure,

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you know,

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if we did a poll,

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if we asked anyone on the street,

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what do you think deceptive behavior looks like?

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Within five guesses, they'd tell you that lies avert their gaze.

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They tell you that people are fidgeting,

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that they might take longer to respond to your questions.

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But if we look at this list of stereotypical deceptive behaviors,

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and we look at the list of natural characteristics of autism, there is a large overlap.

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And that is sort of a driving force for one of the big papers that we're currently

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working on,

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which is looking at what is deceptive behaviour versus what is natural

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characteristics of autism?

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Because we're concerned that due to these non-autistic stereotypes around

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behaviour,

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people are going to be interacting with autistic people.

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and may judge them to be lying,

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even when they're telling the truth,

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just because they're noticing some of these behaviours that they believe is

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indicative of deceit,

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when in reality it's indicative of their neurodiverse status.

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So we're hoping to sort of move that information knowledge into training,

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into the police,

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because research has been done which suggests that the UK police aren't confident

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in their knowledge of autism.

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They would want more training.

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They aren't confident in their interactions because of this lack of knowledge and training.

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So with information like this,

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we can take it to police,

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take it to training and say,

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look,

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things that you do believe are deceptive actually may be indicative of autism.

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And we really want to avoid the misconceptions and potential inaccurate judgments

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that are stemming from such misconceptions.

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Are there any sort of,

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so you mentioned a few sort of things in deception,

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which kind of overlap pretty well with characteristics of autism.

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Are there certain other ones which you guys know of, which might not be as related?

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Oh, sorry.

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It might not have as much of an overlap,

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which I guess you would ask,

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I don't know,

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like police and so on to focus on then in that case.

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So,

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With asking police to focus on behaviours,

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at least this may just be my opinion personally,

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but I think we really need to avoid telling people what to look for and instead

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tell them what not to focus on.

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So we know that the majority of veracity decisions and veracity being whether or

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not they think someone's lying or telling the truth are flawed.

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A, because people are inherently truth biased.

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We naturally believe that people are telling us the truth.

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And B, because people are focusing on the wrong behaviours.

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So there was a study that asked the police, what behaviours do you think are suspicious?

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And they said things like averted eye gaze, fidgeting, difference in language.

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And you'd like to think that if we know that these are stereotypical deception

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cues,

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that legal professionals who've had training would.

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But then you look at the training and some of it still to this day says things like,

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eye contact may be suspicious.

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Certain body movements may be suspicious.

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And it's just,

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it's barreling towards a misunderstanding and increases the danger really for

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autistic adults to be misconstrued in the criminal justice system.

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So I'd say instead of telling people what to look for,

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we need to tell them what to stop looking at.

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I mean, just on a general note, if someone's sort of

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interrogating me i'd be nervous to begin with i'd probably not look at them yeah

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right at the start anyway so you add that exactly we we do these behaviors and

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people put a lot of stock into behaviors when actually they're not you know they

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don't mean anything for some people that it's just people have natural differences

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in eye contact so a defining characteristic of autism is um differences in eye

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contact so in in my study we found that

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When telling the truth and lying,

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autistic adults display reduced eye contact compared to non-autistic adults.

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It's a natural characteristic of their condition.

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But just because of all the stereotypes that we see around it,

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it does become really dangerous when people don't know.

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I was going to very quickly just clarify a couple of sentences.

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What you're saying is so basically people in general for, let's say, neurotypical people,

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can only about 50% of the time tell when somebody is being deceptive because those

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normal traits are actually not necessarily meaning deception.

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But those that we,

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which we assume is deception,

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so you like the avoiding of eye contact,

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those that are kind of linked with people who have autism means that they're more

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likely to be assumed that they're being deceptive.

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And so,

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but so,

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and so you never have kind of,

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do you view it from the opposite end of the kind of spectrum,

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I guess,

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where,

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um,

(00:19:43):
the police who might be deceptive,

(00:19:45):
um,

(00:19:46):
and because the people who have autism might not be able to pick up on that

(00:19:50):
deception.

(00:19:51):
So is it kind of, is it kind of viewing it from both sides?

(00:19:53):
Like there's, there's always bias on both sides.

(00:19:55):
Is that fair to say?

(00:19:58):
Yeah, that's a great question.

(00:19:59):
Thank you.

(00:19:59):
So we do look at it from both ends.

(00:20:02):
So the production of deception and detection of deception.

(00:20:05):
So I am testing a theoretical framework called the Brunswick lens model and

(00:20:10):
applying this to the autistic population.

(00:20:13):
So the Brunswick lens model of deception is a four stage theory.

(00:20:18):
And it says that in stage one, the person chooses to lie or tell the truth.

(00:20:22):
In stage two,

(00:20:23):
they then display certain behaviours,

(00:20:27):
deceptive behaviours if they're lying,

(00:20:29):
honest behaviours if they're not.

(00:20:31):
Stage three, a person then perceives those behaviours

(00:20:34):
And stage four,

(00:20:35):
they use that information about the cues and other information to make the veracity

(00:20:39):
decision.

(00:20:40):
So you can split it into two sections.

(00:20:42):
So stage one and two is production of deception and stage three and four is

(00:20:46):
detection of deception,

(00:20:48):
the veracity decision.

(00:20:50):
So we are looking at how autistic adults, when they lie, how they lie.

(00:20:56):
And there are differences in each stage,

(00:21:00):
potential differences in each stage of the model that people

(00:21:03):
just haven't looked at yet.

(00:21:04):
There's very, very little research in this field.

(00:21:08):
And this field being autism and deception,

(00:21:10):
but also in deception more generally,

(00:21:12):
that stage three,

(00:21:13):
the perception of deception cues,

(00:21:16):
a lot of people overlook it.

(00:21:18):
They just go, okay, people lie and people make the decision.

(00:21:21):
But that middle bit of how people perceive behaviors to me is a really important aspect.

(00:21:26):
And there are differences that I think we'll find there in relation to how autistic

(00:21:30):
people perceive behaviors.

(00:21:32):
So it's known that autistic children do not spontaneously orientate towards social

(00:21:37):
stimuli in the same way that non-autistic children do.

(00:21:40):
For example, they assign less social reward to eye gaze.

(00:21:46):
Now,

(00:21:46):
non-autistic children and adults do orientate spontaneously,

(00:21:51):
innately to social stimuli,

(00:21:53):
including faces and eye contact.

(00:21:56):
We understand a lot of our social information does come from eye gaze.

(00:22:00):
but autistic adults do not experience this in the same way.

(00:22:03):
So they may not perceive this behaviour in the same way.

(00:22:07):
In relation to something that we call social camouflaging,

(00:22:10):
this is when autistic adults try to hide or alter aspects of their autistic

(00:22:16):
behaviour and personality to assimilate to non-autistic adults around them and

(00:22:22):
present themselves as non-autistic.

(00:22:24):
So it's called social camouflaging or masking.

(00:22:27):
And it's a very effortful process that requires a lot of internal energy.

(00:22:32):
So for example,

(00:22:33):
in a social interaction,

(00:22:35):
if an autistic person is focusing so much energy on maintaining their mask,

(00:22:39):
they will have less potential energy to focus their behavior externally on what the

(00:22:45):
person is doing,

(00:22:46):
how they're behaving,

(00:22:47):
because they're focusing on maintaining the mask themselves.

(00:22:50):
So with that difference in energy and attention, this may influence how they perceive

(00:22:56):
the behaviour from the other person.

(00:22:58):
So in relation to things like the perception of cues,

(00:23:01):
autistic people may perceive these behaviours differently.

(00:23:06):
They may not see them in the same way that non-autistic people do,

(00:23:09):
which may influence then the decision that they make with those behaviours.

(00:23:13):
And we also don't know whether currently autistic adults harbour the same

(00:23:17):
stereotypes that non-autistic adults do.

(00:23:19):
So there's been lots of studies done that have found that when non-autistic adults

(00:23:23):
see averted eye gaze,

(00:23:25):
they're more likely to say that this person is lying.

(00:23:28):
These studies haven't been conducted yet with autistic adults.

(00:23:33):
We are conducting one currently and we are actually

(00:23:37):
noticing similarities in the way that autistic adults perceive cues so in the study

(00:23:43):
that we're analysing at the minute both autistic and non-autistic adults perceive

(00:23:47):
averted eye gaze to be more deceptive and longer responses uh to be indicative of

(00:23:54):
honesty so although we don't know for sure yet uh how if autistic adults do

(00:24:00):
perceive behaviors in the same way because we can't say anything for sure from one

(00:24:04):
study um

(00:24:06):
My study is the first sort of evidence to suggest that actually stage three,

(00:24:10):
they may be perceiving deceptive cues in the same way.

(00:24:14):
Okay, sorry.

(00:24:18):
So this raises an interesting point if I understood it correctly.

(00:24:22):
So you're saying that both autistic and non-autistic individuals sort of can

(00:24:27):
perceive the lack of eye gaze,

(00:24:29):
for example,

(00:24:30):
at the same way as deception.

(00:24:31):
Does that mean that autistic individuals can,

(00:24:36):
might find other autistic individuals as more deceptive than non-autistic

(00:24:41):
individuals?

(00:24:45):
So it's really interesting because we went into this study anticipating that due to

(00:24:52):
the presence of averted eye gaze in the autistic videos,

(00:24:56):
that autistic speakers would be judged to be more deceptive than non-autistic

(00:25:00):
speakers.

(00:25:01):
We didn't find this.

(00:25:03):
So we know there are differences in the presentation of the behaviours between

(00:25:08):
autistic and non-autistic adults,

(00:25:10):
but we're not finding a difference in

(00:25:14):
allocation of deception.

(00:25:15):
So people are saying,

(00:25:17):
I can notice differences in behavior,

(00:25:19):
but whether or not the person is autistic or non-autistic doesn't seem to be

(00:25:23):
influencing their veracity decision.

(00:25:26):
And the reason we think this is,

(00:25:27):
is because people are really,

(00:25:29):
really,

(00:25:29):
they're just bad at deception detection.

(00:25:34):
And it arguably doesn't matter what that person is doing, unless they're saying,

(00:25:39):
hello i'm lying to you it doesn't matter you know behaviors um inconsistencies in

(00:25:46):
speech it has to be very obvious before people start to really consciously engage

(00:25:51):
in a veracity decision making so although it was unexpected it is actually a

(00:25:58):
positive finding that autistic adults in my study are not being judged to be more

(00:26:02):
deceptive than non-autistic adults

(00:26:10):
So really interesting,

(00:26:11):
I guess,

(00:26:12):
has there only been any real-world cases of people,

(00:26:15):
autistic people,

(00:26:16):
who have gone away to prison because of these kind of misconstrued,

(00:26:26):
like people just misconstruing their actions?

(00:26:30):
So I'm not aware of any cases that have been publicised,

(00:26:34):
but there was definitely anecdotal evidence from

(00:26:37):
members of the autistic community,

(00:26:39):
not necessarily where they've gone and gone to prison,

(00:26:45):
but definitely in terms of street policing and misconceptions in first

(00:26:50):
interactions.

(00:26:51):
So unfortunately,

(00:26:53):
sometimes if autistic adults are,

(00:26:56):
for example,

(00:26:57):
experiencing a meltdown or they are displaying certain characteristics that the

(00:27:03):
police don't understand,

(00:27:05):
there is the risk that they will perceive some of these behaviours as dangerous,

(00:27:11):
as indicative that they may be resisting arrest,

(00:27:15):
and it can escalate these situations.

(00:27:18):
So as I say,

(00:27:18):
it's anecdotal,

(00:27:19):
you know,

(00:27:19):
it's not recorded documents on this,

(00:27:23):
but the autistic community have,

(00:27:25):
members of this have said that they have been,

(00:27:29):
they felt like they've been misjudged or misunderstood by members of the police.

(00:27:34):
That makes sense.

(00:27:35):
Have you heard of a case of Mark de Frist, I think his name is?

(00:27:39):
I haven't.

(00:27:41):
You have or you haven't, sorry.

(00:27:42):
No, I haven't.

(00:27:43):
Well,

(00:27:43):
I was just wondering your opinion on this because I was reading about it a week or

(00:27:46):
two ago.

(00:27:48):
So it's in the US, so we'll take it with a little bit of salt.

(00:27:50):
But in the 1980s, he was labelled as Prison Houdini.

(00:27:55):
It wasn't dangerous or anything,

(00:27:56):
but he was put away in about 1982,

(00:27:58):
I believe,

(00:27:59):
for four years because he

(00:28:01):
he basically stole his dad's tools who had just died.

(00:28:04):
It was in the will, but,

(00:28:05):
For some reason, the will hadn't been released yet.

(00:28:08):
So he got put in prison for burglary.

(00:28:10):
And,

(00:28:11):
you know,

(00:28:11):
first of all,

(00:28:11):
I've got questions about that,

(00:28:12):
whether or not there were some problems there,

(00:28:14):
but it was actually kind of like,

(00:28:15):
as kind of went down the road,

(00:28:17):
he was actually a savant.

(00:28:18):
So when he looked at a key, he could see it, memorize it and make it.

(00:28:22):
And he was able to escape seven times.

(00:28:25):
He was a bit of a loner in prison.

(00:28:26):
He had some behavioral issues and like kind of recently it's more than realized

(00:28:30):
actually,

(00:28:30):
he's still in prison by the way,

(00:28:31):
40 years later.

(00:28:33):
Because of these escape attempts.

(00:28:35):
And it's actually looking like they're like, oh, he's got autism.

(00:28:40):
Or they're waiting for a diagnosis that they probably have autism.

(00:28:43):
I think things like this, do you think, could help with that?

(00:28:45):
Where maybe because of those,

(00:28:46):
he got four years maybe because he was seen as a little bit odd,

(00:28:50):
you know,

(00:28:50):
like lying a little bit because of these things.

(00:28:52):
I just thought it was a case if you got a chance to read about it was exactly the

(00:28:55):
reason why,

(00:28:56):
you know,

(00:28:57):
doing what you're doing is so important and hopefully stop people from getting,

(00:29:00):
you know,

(00:29:00):
in prison for four or even 40 years.

(00:29:03):
yeah definitely um i mean well being able to look at a lock and instantly know how

(00:29:08):
to yeah that's a skill yeah look up i will do uh yes i yeah i've not i've not heard

(00:29:17):
of that case i'll look it up but there has definitely been like instances where

(00:29:21):
people have unfortunately been you know misjudged or potentially the sentence may

(00:29:27):
be

(00:29:29):
different depending on the diagnostic status of the defendant suspect but actually

(00:29:34):
research suggests it may go in the opposite direction so some research that looks

(00:29:40):
at court and sentencing for autistic defendants that if the defendant is autistic

(00:29:48):
it can actually may reduce the sentence that they are given obviously it depends on

(00:29:54):
the case and each situation is specific but

(00:29:58):
sometimes it can have a positive influence,

(00:30:00):
if not on the sentence decision,

(00:30:02):
definitely on how they are perceived.

(00:30:04):
So in the example of my master's thesis,

(00:30:08):
we found that we gave people a written vignette of a situation where an autistic

(00:30:14):
person was waiting for a train and their train was delayed.

(00:30:19):
We mentioned that the train was their special interest.

(00:30:21):
So this train being delayed caused

(00:30:25):
stress and anxiety in the person and then the police were called because they were

(00:30:31):
exhibiting some dangerous behaviours towards themselves.

(00:30:35):
The police came and the person began to shout and act out towards the police.

(00:30:40):
So we gave the people this information and we asked them

(00:30:44):
You know, do you think this person is guilty because they ended up hitting out at the police?

(00:30:49):
So they were charged with assaulting a police officer.

(00:30:51):
Is this person guilty?

(00:30:52):
Do you understand what happened?

(00:30:55):
All different questions.

(00:30:57):
And then we gave them after they gave their answers, we then told them.

(00:31:01):
actually this person was autistic,

(00:31:04):
their special interest was trained,

(00:31:06):
they become extremely upset and anxious when their routine is changed and a little

(00:31:11):
bit of information about their diagnosis.

(00:31:15):
Then we asked them, does this change anything?

(00:31:18):
Are you viewing this person exactly the same?

(00:31:20):
Do you want to change any of your viewpoints?

(00:31:22):
And we found that actually once we told everyone that the defendant was autistic,

(00:31:27):
there was a positive shift in judgments.

(00:31:29):
They started to view the defendant as more likeable,

(00:31:31):
more believable,

(00:31:32):
more honest,

(00:31:33):
more credible.

(00:31:34):
So there is some evidence to suggest that actually disclosure of a diagnosis can

(00:31:41):
have a positive impact in certain situations.

(00:31:46):
So it's... Sorry, see you after you.

(00:31:48):
Go on, go on, go on.

(00:31:49):
No,

(00:31:49):
very quickly,

(00:31:50):
just to bring back to the mark for his sister,

(00:31:51):
maybe if they had known that he was autistic,

(00:31:54):
then it might have been like,

(00:31:55):
okay,

(00:31:55):
then,

(00:31:56):
so we'll give him a little bit more leeway.

(00:31:58):
But then we wouldn't have had the prison Houdini.

(00:32:04):
No, I was just saying, yeah, that makes sense.

(00:32:07):
And I think that's more of a recent trend, right?

(00:32:10):
With more awareness comes that more sort of you're willing to give people that leeway.

(00:32:15):
But like you mentioned at the beginning when you said that

(00:32:21):
autistic individuals are seven times more likely to interact with the justice system.

(00:32:28):
What I was thinking was exactly what you said of that being mostly sort of

(00:32:31):
resisting arrest or sort of caseworker incidents sort of things is what I thought

(00:32:37):
would be sort of the main interactions which people would face.

(00:32:43):
With that regard, is there any sort of things which come to your mind in terms of training

(00:32:50):
which can help police officers in sort of detecting that if it feels like that's

(00:32:58):
going to be one of the main interactions which they're going to have with autistic

(00:33:02):
individuals.

(00:33:04):
Yeah, definitely.

(00:33:06):
I mean, it's as simple as complex as recommending more training, isn't it?

(00:33:12):
Yeah, so definitely just making sure the manuals that they have now.

(00:33:16):
So as I mentioned earlier, some of the manuals still say things like,

(00:33:19):
eye gaze is suspicious, these behaviours are suspicious.

(00:33:22):
These are all grounded in non-autistic expectations.

(00:33:25):
So a lot of my work is underpinned by something called the expectation violation theory.

(00:33:30):
And this is a theory of communication which says that when we interact with people,

(00:33:34):
we expect to see certain behaviours.

(00:33:36):
So we expect them to act in line with what we think an honest person looks like.

(00:33:41):
When we see unexpected behaviours, for example averted eye gaze,

(00:33:45):
This draws our attention to that behaviour and we need to find an explanation for

(00:33:50):
that behaviour.

(00:33:52):
So a lot of the time it's this unexpected behaviour has happened.

(00:33:55):
This violates my expectations of how this interaction should be going.

(00:34:00):
What could explain this?

(00:34:01):
Actually, I think they might be lying to me.

(00:34:04):
And it's those expectations, though, of behaviour are non-autistic expectations.

(00:34:10):
The majority of society will think certain things,

(00:34:13):
but it's because we're viewing it through a non-autistic,

(00:34:18):
non-neurodiverse lens.

(00:34:20):
So actually,

(00:34:21):
we want to educate the police and legal professionals and actually everyone and

(00:34:25):
say,

(00:34:26):
your expectations surrounding behavior are biased to non-autistic people.

(00:34:33):
You know, if you tell people, actually,

(00:34:36):
These behaviours may be indicative of neurodiversity.

(00:34:39):
That will change the expectations because then if I see this behaviour,

(00:34:43):
I go,

(00:34:43):
actually,

(00:34:44):
the explanation for that behaviour might not be that they're lying to me.

(00:34:48):
It might be that they are neurodiverse.

(00:34:51):
And we just want the legal system to sort of acknowledge this a bit more,

(00:34:56):
put this through the training,

(00:34:57):
just be saying,

(00:34:58):
actually,

(00:34:58):
you know,

(00:35:00):
autism is prevalent.

(00:35:02):
And with autistic people facing an increased risk of interacting with the justice

(00:35:06):
system,

(00:35:06):
they are likely to interact with autistic people and quite often.

(00:35:10):
So we just want them to be more aware of autism and neurodiversity,

(00:35:14):
potentially more aware of the behaviours that they can expect,

(00:35:18):
and especially changing these manuals to make sure there's a neurodiverse lens

(00:35:22):
going through.

(00:35:23):
but also making sure that they are fostering a safe and supportive environment for

(00:35:30):
autistic people.

(00:35:30):
Now this, not necessarily in street policing, but things like interrogation rooms at custody.

(00:35:38):
I would be terrified if I went into custody or the police were interrogating me.

(00:35:44):
And I don't have a diagnosis of autism.

(00:35:46):
If, so I don't, I don't have to disclose diagnosis.

(00:35:50):
If an autistic adult was in that situation,

(00:35:53):
the likelihood of them disclosing their diagnosis may be dependent on how

(00:35:58):
supportive and safe they feel.

(00:36:00):
If they're fearful that if they disclose their diagnosis,

(00:36:05):
they'll be discriminated against or they'll receive prejudice,

(00:36:08):
they're not going to provide that information.

(00:36:11):
And that information may be what allows them to be more likely to receive equitable

(00:36:17):
and fair treatment.

(00:36:18):
There are many appropriate adjustments that can be made for autistic adults in the

(00:36:22):
criminal justice system,

(00:36:24):
but they can only be made once.

(00:36:27):
The police are aware that the person that they're interacting with is autistic.

(00:36:31):
So it's about making sure they feel comfortable to potentially disclose a diagnosis

(00:36:36):
and also that autistic people are aware of the rights that they have and of the

(00:36:40):
adjustments that they can recommend,

(00:36:42):
including appropriate adults and visual aids,

(00:36:45):
things like that.

(00:36:46):
So it's just a bit about awareness.

(00:36:50):
So I guess,

(00:36:50):
because you just,

(00:36:51):
what you touched on there,

(00:36:52):
there's been a huge increase in diagnosis,

(00:36:55):
not in case,

(00:36:55):
let's say,

(00:36:55):
there just hasn't been the same levels of diagnosis,

(00:36:57):
I'm sure.

(00:36:59):
But do you think maybe one way of tackling this,

(00:37:02):
which you kind of alluded to,

(00:37:03):
was maybe workshops run by people who are neurodivergent?

(00:37:08):
Is that something that would, you know, ameliorate this?

(00:37:10):
I did a research and inclusion in a diversity and inclusion and research workshop

(00:37:17):
last week,

(00:37:17):
and there was a woman there who has her own company where she will go in or they

(00:37:21):
will go in and they will...

(00:37:25):
teach the the research group or your company more about neurodivergencies so maybe

(00:37:31):
that is do you think that would be a a good answer or yeah definitely um so there's

(00:37:37):
a there's a common phrase in the autistic community which is nothing about us

(00:37:41):
without us um and it's just about collaborative work and and definitely if you know

(00:37:46):
with all the findings that we we find from this project i am hoping to potentially

(00:37:50):
because i'm collaborating with um

(00:37:52):
the charity Autistica,

(00:37:54):
you know,

(00:37:54):
we would love to try and create policy briefings and take this to the justice

(00:37:58):
system,

(00:37:59):
to the government.

(00:38:00):
But the autistic community would be the driving force in that it would be,

(00:38:04):
yes,

(00:38:06):
training for the police led by autistic individuals,

(00:38:10):
because

(00:38:11):
This project is for autistic people.

(00:38:14):
I'd never want to speak on behalf of or take away from the opportunities that

(00:38:21):
autistic people can have to talk about autism to the police and just make sure that

(00:38:27):
we're doing all that we can to advance understanding and also

(00:38:31):
Autistic people will be able to tell the police,

(00:38:34):
obviously,

(00:38:34):
about their own lived experiences,

(00:38:35):
but and things that researchers that aren't autistic just won't be able to ever

(00:38:41):
fully understand.

(00:38:42):
And I would never claim to.

(00:38:43):
So it's definitely I want the autistic voice to be at the centre of my project now

(00:38:48):
and moving forward.

(00:38:51):
that's great so basically so it's important to have a diverse workforce as well

(00:38:55):
basically isn't it what you're saying um more neurodivergent hires especially

(00:39:00):
within the police force and the legal system would help that as well yeah yeah

(00:39:04):
definitely would and i think we are going there i went to a conference the other

(00:39:07):
week and they're talking about hiring specifically hiring neurodiverse people for

(00:39:13):
certain skill sets um which is absolutely fantastic but yeah there's still still a

(00:39:17):
long way to go

(00:39:19):
I mean, if you had the Houdini on your side.

(00:39:22):
Yes.

(00:39:23):
I'm sure he'd open lots of doors for people.

(00:39:25):
Yes.

(00:39:33):
I want to get back to your study or the research projects you're doing.

(00:39:38):
We,

(00:39:38):
of course,

(00:39:38):
spoke about one in detail and then we touched upon the videos that you had

(00:39:43):
recorded.

(00:39:45):
Can you talk us through a little bit more of it,

(00:39:48):
like what you're trying to do,

(00:39:51):
what that experiment or that research is about?

(00:39:53):
Yeah.

(00:39:54):
Yeah.

(00:39:55):
So we had, this was the like backbone to my PhD.

(00:40:00):
So I was in the lab for a very long time.

(00:40:04):
We had 137 in the end.

(00:40:07):
So we had autistic and non-autistic adults come into the lab and I recorded them

(00:40:12):
lying and telling the truth about what they did last weekend in like an interview

(00:40:16):
set up.

(00:40:16):
So they were interviewed by a Confederate.

(00:40:20):
And after this, I then,

(00:40:22):
exported all the data,

(00:40:23):
put it through a behavioral coding software,

(00:40:26):
and I coded nonverbal and paraverbal behaviors.

(00:40:29):
So the nonverbal behaviors that I looked at were eye gaze.

(00:40:32):
So I recorded every eye movement made in terms of when they look directly at the

(00:40:37):
interviewer,

(00:40:38):
away from the interviewer or at the camera.

(00:40:41):
I watched every video on 0.5, like mine's 0.5 speed.

(00:40:46):
Honestly, it took about six months just

(00:40:49):
every eye movement i'm never going to look at eye gaze the same way ever again like

(00:40:53):
even in conversations now i'm just attuned to eye gaze um so i did that

(00:40:59):
self-manipulators they are behaviors that we do to self-soothe um and it's hand on

(00:41:05):
hand to the body not including hand-to-hand movements so this is things like

(00:41:09):
playing with your hair your rings your jewelry basically nervous behaviors that we

(00:41:14):
do to calm ourselves down

(00:41:16):
And Iconic Illustrators, which are hand gestures that supplement verbal content.

(00:41:20):
So it's actually really interesting doing it on a podcast because I'm going to have

(00:41:23):
to properly explain it.

(00:41:25):
So if I was to say,

(00:41:26):
for example,

(00:41:27):
the ball was round,

(00:41:29):
whilst I said the word round,

(00:41:30):
I'd be making a circular motion with my hands.

(00:41:33):
So my action supplements what I said verbally.

(00:41:37):
Then for the paraverbal behaviours,

(00:41:38):
we had response length,

(00:41:40):
which is how long they responded to each question and response latency.

(00:41:45):
That is when the interviewer finished the question,

(00:41:48):
what was the time difference before they started to respond?

(00:41:52):
So I coded all of these behaviors.

(00:41:54):
I had a fantastic team.

(00:41:56):
So I had a research intern that did inter-rater reliability with me.

(00:42:00):
She did an absolutely incredible job.

(00:42:01):
So we got inter-rater reliability at 0.9 across behaviors.

(00:42:05):
So we're pretty confident that these behaviors that I observed, they were displayed and we

(00:42:14):
then started to create these profiles of deceptive and honest behaviour in autistic

(00:42:19):
and non-autistic adults.

(00:42:21):
So we compared what behaviour we're actually seeing,

(00:42:23):
and we found that when lying,

(00:42:25):
both autistic and non-autistic adults increased their level of direct eye contact,

(00:42:30):
which completely goes against the stereotype,

(00:42:33):
but it shows us that people are aware.

(00:42:35):
People know.

(00:42:36):
People think I'm lying if I avert my gaze,

(00:42:38):
so I'm going to make direct eye contact with you to put you off the scent.

(00:42:44):
We found things like the response latency was shorter in the deceptive conditions

(00:42:52):
compared to the honest.

(00:42:53):
And we were a bit surprised at this initially because the literature sort of

(00:42:57):
suggests that it takes longer to think about what you're going to say when you're

(00:43:01):
lying because you don't want to trip yourself up.

(00:43:03):
But we think this actually might be because in the experiments,

(00:43:08):
When I went out to get the interviewer and bring them into the lab,

(00:43:11):
the participant had a minute or so to plan what they were going to say,

(00:43:15):
be that the truth or lie.

(00:43:18):
And what we think might be happening is when we said,

(00:43:20):
right,

(00:43:21):
now you're going to tell the truth,

(00:43:23):
they didn't use this time to plan because they're subject to something which is

(00:43:27):
called the illusion of transparency.

(00:43:29):
And this is the belief that most people have,

(00:43:32):
which is if I'm honest,

(00:43:34):
you will know because I'm not going to act deceptively.

(00:43:37):
I'm going to tell the truth and it will be obvious.

(00:43:39):
It will be clear.

(00:43:40):
So people didn't plan.

(00:43:43):
Whereas when I said to them, right, now you're going to lie.

(00:43:46):
When I left the room, we think that participants might have been going, oh, okay, I need to lie.

(00:43:51):
I need to think about what I'm going to say.

(00:43:53):
And they'll have been planning.

(00:43:54):
I'm going to lie about this event.

(00:43:55):
I'm going to say I went here.

(00:43:57):
So that when the interview came around,

(00:44:00):
when we asked the questions in the deceptive condition, they'd already thought about it.

(00:44:03):
They already had a plan and they could go straight in.

(00:44:05):
Whereas in the truthful condition, they hadn't planned.

(00:44:08):
So they had to think about it more, which led to this longer response latency.

(00:44:13):
But the main finding from that paper and the one that we've

(00:44:18):
really,

(00:44:18):
really important to get across to everyone,

(00:44:20):
including legal professionals,

(00:44:22):
is,

(00:44:22):
although Callum stole my thunder a bit actually,

(00:44:24):
because I think he discussed it when he came on with you,

(00:44:28):
is that finding that actually averted eye gaze,

(00:44:31):
yes,

(00:44:31):
it is a statistical predictor of deceit,

(00:44:33):
we found that,

(00:44:34):
but we went one step further and we said,

(00:44:36):
okay,

(00:44:37):
a lot of deception research looks at,

(00:44:40):
does this behaviour predict deceit in this lab situation?

(00:44:44):
Well, that's fine, but we don't lie in labs.

(00:44:46):
We lie in everyday life.

(00:44:48):
So we wanted to make sure, can this be extended to outside in a practical context?

(00:44:53):
Is it a true effect?

(00:44:55):
So we ran additional sensitivity analysis on all the data.

(00:44:58):
And we found that actually,

(00:45:00):
when you remove this information and you put it in a practical context,

(00:45:04):
eye gaze is not a reliable predictor of the seat,

(00:45:07):
but it is a reliable predictor of diagnostic status.

(00:45:11):
So it can reliably predict whether someone is autistic or non-autistic outside of

(00:45:16):
the lab,

(00:45:16):
but it can't with deception.

(00:45:18):
And obviously,

(00:45:19):
due to the overlap that we've discussed surrounding deceptive stereotypes and

(00:45:23):
behaviour,

(00:45:24):
that has really strong implications and potentially is

(00:45:27):
is contributing to these misconceptions that we see.

(00:45:36):
What was I going to say?

(00:45:37):
Yeah.

(00:45:40):
I'm thinking of how you used to tell kids, right?

(00:45:43):
I mean, like, say, look at me in my eyes and lie to me.

(00:45:46):
It turns out that people do that better than the other way around.

(00:45:50):
Yeah.

(00:45:50):
Yeah, people are already doing it.

(00:45:53):
to look straight I used to hate it when my parents did that because you always

(00:45:57):
laugh don't you when someone says that to you look me in the eyes tell me you

(00:46:00):
always laugh and then they go see you're lying because you're laughing and now I'm

(00:46:03):
like I can tell my mom actually no no I'm not a lot of my friends don't believe me

(00:46:09):
because I like I'm laughing or saying something then you're lying to me I'm like no

(00:46:13):
I'm telling the truth you're making me laugh yeah exactly

(00:46:20):
No, but that's also very interesting, like you said, of the eye gaze.

(00:46:26):
So then you're more likely to detect that someone's autistic than you are to detect

(00:46:32):
whether they're lying in like a situation,

(00:46:34):
I guess,

(00:46:35):
in like a general situation based on eye gaze,

(00:46:38):
aren't you?

(00:46:39):
Yeah.

(00:46:40):
So it's not,

(00:46:41):
you know,

(00:46:41):
like a direct X equals Y,

(00:46:43):
but it's more reliable indicates that they may be autistic than actually they may

(00:46:48):
be lying.

(00:46:55):
So, so that was, that was like the main finding of this study.

(00:47:01):
Um, what, what were some of the other sort of like key findings that you'd say to take from it?

(00:47:09):
From that study?

(00:47:09):
Yeah.

(00:47:12):
So you had things like self-manipulators and iconic illustrators that I mentioned.

(00:47:17):
There is a lot of contrasting evidence throughout the... Sorry, that'll be going on.

(00:47:24):
There's a lot of contrasting evidence as to whether people increase their

(00:47:28):
behaviours,

(00:47:28):
decrease their behaviours.

(00:47:30):
And this evidence base has been 30, 40 years in the making.

(00:47:34):
But no one's looked at this in autistic populations.

(00:47:38):
So we're finding actually that things like iconic illustrators,

(00:47:42):
self manipulators,

(00:47:43):
response length,

(00:47:44):
things that people used to think were important in deception detection,

(00:47:49):
they're not.

(00:47:50):
People are not behaving in predictable ways.

(00:47:54):
So this obsession that people tend to have with behaviour when people are lying,

(00:48:00):
there's no evidence base.

(00:48:02):
And I find it so, so interesting that 30, 40 years of evidence which says

(00:48:07):
No, don't look at these behaviours.

(00:48:10):
People still do.

(00:48:10):
They're cross-cultural, cross-generational, cross-educational, cross-everything.

(00:48:15):
These behaviours and stereotypes just keep going, keep going, keep going.

(00:48:19):
And I just, I find it so interesting that researchers are saying, hang on, please, no.

(00:48:24):
And people just, you know, they just keep thinking it.

(00:48:27):
So maybe we'll have to try and find a way.

(00:48:29):
I don't know how we can...

(00:48:31):
how we can find a way to sort of break the stereotypes but we're gonna try we'll

(00:48:34):
keep trying um so yeah just contributing to that field and saying yeah behaviors

(00:48:39):
don't just bank on them i mean i guess any police investigative tv show needs to

(00:48:45):
have these kind of cues right because if if they don't then it's just like oh this

(00:48:50):
is boring can you tell by that i guess no you can't can you tell by the way they

(00:48:54):
touch no nothing yeah it's not as entertaining

(00:49:01):
yeah what would you say are some of the biggest stereotypes people have about

(00:49:07):
people with autism um so as i mentioned the myth that autistic people can't lie um

(00:49:13):
autistic people can lie and they can lie for similar amounts similar reasons and i

(00:49:21):
find that one a really interesting sort of myth because it's it relates to rule

(00:49:26):
following and social

(00:49:28):
sort of interaction and just the the brutal honesty that it's almost uh it has come

(00:49:35):
from from media representations of autistic people and you know you see people like

(00:49:41):
i don't think they ever stated that he was autistic but sheldon cooper you know

(00:49:47):
there's large inferences that he is neurodiverse people um i don't know the name

(00:49:52):
the good doctor um the autistic good doctor both of these are

(00:49:57):
very strong male characters that are very direct very to the point brutally honest

(00:50:01):
and and defend people and when people don't learn about autism in schools or

(00:50:07):
through if they don't have family connections or friends this for some people is

(00:50:11):
the first sort of information that they are given about autistic people and a lot

(00:50:16):
of it is very stereotypical um you know just those two i mentioned there there are

(00:50:20):
some others we don't see

(00:50:23):
often lead autistic females, people of colour.

(00:50:28):
There are gaping holes in the media representation of autism that just leads people

(00:50:33):
to think autistic people are white men who are very,

(00:50:37):
very clever,

(00:50:38):
who are rude.

(00:50:39):
And it's completely stereotypical.

(00:50:41):
So I do think the media is playing a large part of that.

(00:50:44):
Some of them are getting a lot better.

(00:50:46):
There's some good representations now like

(00:50:50):
atypical on Netflix I've heard the autistic community quite like that one and some

(00:50:54):
other ones as well but yeah that myth around not being able to lie and like the

(00:51:00):
cold nature it just doesn't reflect actually the vibrant nature of the autistic

(00:51:05):
community and it does definitely underplay their abilities too

(00:51:13):
so basically myth that they can't lie people can definitely people with autism can

(00:51:18):
lie and also the conception of what autism looks like yes white male domineering

(00:51:25):
yeah super smart is not just the you know there's not one way there's not one shoe

(00:51:29):
yeah i mean that's a good point as well yeah the super smart savant yeah i think um

(00:51:35):
it's

(00:51:35):
I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head,

(00:51:37):
but I think it's under 5% of the autistic population are savants.

(00:51:42):
There are a lot more autistic people with low intellectual abilities and

(00:51:46):
co-occurring learning conditions than savants.

(00:51:49):
So why do we only see the extremely smart,

(00:51:53):
extremely intelligent characters when actually some autistic people really do

(00:51:57):
struggle with their intellectual abilities and potentially aspects of everyday

(00:52:02):
life.

(00:52:03):
Some autistic people won't be neurosurgeons, they won't be doctors.

(00:52:07):
So there is a disconnect between what we see on the screen and the stereotypes as

(00:52:11):
to actually what a large proportion of the autistic community experience in

(00:52:15):
day-to-day life.

(00:52:15):
So yeah, definitely the savant that everyone is a savant is a myth too.

(00:52:20):
We need to speak to Hollywood about this and tell them to... I know, yeah.

(00:52:23):
I should create a program, shouldn't I?

(00:52:27):
Become a consultant on the next show.

(00:52:29):
Yeah, but as you mentioned, I don't think many people would watch it here, would they?

(00:52:32):
Can't do this, can't do that.

(00:52:37):
It's a bit too, yeah.

(00:52:39):
If it's a bit too real, it becomes boring, doesn't it?

(00:52:41):
I don't like it as well.

(00:52:45):
But on a personal note,

(00:52:46):
what has been some of your more,

(00:52:48):
yeah,

(00:52:48):
what has been something more surprising or what surprised you or is what you found

(00:52:52):
more rewarding as well about working with autistic individuals,

(00:52:56):
your research in particular?

(00:53:00):
So surprising is the fact that

(00:53:04):
I knew people were really bad lie detectors.

(00:53:06):
I didn't know quite how bad they were.

(00:53:09):
So in the study we've just done,

(00:53:11):
we got accuracy rates of 30% for autistic and non-autistic adults.

(00:53:16):
So a significantly below chance.

(00:53:17):
I mean, you would be better flipping a coin than actually trying to make these decisions.

(00:53:22):
So that was definitely surprising.

(00:53:24):
In terms of rewarding, so obviously I'm in the lab working with autistic students.

(00:53:29):
And it's been really,

(00:53:30):
really rewarding,

(00:53:31):
the reception that I've had from the autistic community at Lancaster.

(00:53:34):
You know,

(00:53:35):
sometimes you,

(00:53:38):
as a researcher,

(00:53:39):
you do a lot of the things sort of on your own,

(00:53:40):
at your desk,

(00:53:41):
and it feels a little bit disconnected from the community that you're working with.

(00:53:46):
But I had a really warm reception from the autistic students and they were really,

(00:53:51):
really interested.

(00:53:53):
in the research and really open and sort of the conversations I had were they were

(00:53:59):
really appreciative that I was looking into this and I felt really sort of like

(00:54:05):
really privileged that they decided to share that information with me and you know

(00:54:09):
that I was doing something that the autistic community wanted and needed because as

(00:54:14):
I mentioned at the start

(00:54:16):
We see some research that's done,

(00:54:17):
not necessarily in autism,

(00:54:19):
in research in general,

(00:54:21):
that is sort of done on a whim or,

(00:54:23):
you know,

(00:54:24):
there's no practical implications that are direct or...

(00:54:27):
But this is really autistic,

(00:54:29):
centred and led.

(00:54:30):
And I really do hope that what I find may potentially,

(00:54:34):
you know,

(00:54:34):
even if it helps one autistic person,

(00:54:36):
the whole PhD will have been worth it.

(00:54:39):
So yeah,

(00:54:39):
just the warmth,

(00:54:41):
reception and uptake that I've had with the autistic students has been really...

(00:54:46):
Really lovely.

(00:54:51):
That's great.

(00:54:51):
And have they been up with consulting on the project?

(00:54:56):
So when we created the project, obviously I created it with my supervisors.

(00:55:02):
So the first few studies,

(00:55:05):
we did a lot of reading around what the autistic community wanted,

(00:55:10):
but they weren't necessarily involved in the direct creation of the studies.

(00:55:14):
But the latter half,

(00:55:15):
Autistica became involved and their research team does include autistic

(00:55:19):
individuals.

(00:55:19):
So we did have co-production of the latter studies.

(00:55:22):
And we take my results to Autistica as well.

(00:55:26):
And with the research team,

(00:55:27):
we sort of work on the interpretation about what the autistic community might feel

(00:55:32):
about the results,

(00:55:33):
how they,

(00:55:34):
does it reflect how they think.

(00:55:37):
And members of my research team who were involved in the coding do also identify as autistic.

(00:55:41):
So we do have

(00:55:42):
um a diverse research team working on the project awesome uh because because we've

(00:55:50):
recorded for about an hour uh we'll go into sort of like final questions per se um

(00:55:57):
my my final question is to you taken is what about the future so what is what is

(00:56:02):
sort of the next steps you're thinking of what is sort of the next

(00:56:05):
Yeah, aims of your research project.

(00:56:07):
And you know, I know you mentioned that your PhD submissions coming soon.

(00:56:11):
So yeah, so what?

(00:56:17):
So yeah, we I do have a really sort of clear vision of where I want to take this.

(00:56:21):
And so hopefully,

(00:56:22):
fingers crossed,

(00:56:23):
you know,

(00:56:23):
it'll be some form of postdoc after the PhD,

(00:56:26):
but we really want to situate this in the forensic sector and actual forensic

(00:56:32):
context.

(00:56:32):
So we want to take these videos I've created,

(00:56:35):
take them to police,

(00:56:36):
lawyers,

(00:56:36):
judges,

(00:56:37):
see if they can accurately detect deception or if there are any differences in how

(00:56:41):
they view autistic and non-autistic people.

(00:56:44):
Because obviously it's important for everyday social life to do it with this

(00:56:48):
population,

(00:56:49):
but the consequences of say,

(00:56:53):
My friend knowing I don't like her hair versus a police officer not believing me

(00:56:58):
when I say I didn't do something.

(00:57:00):
Very different consequences and very different outcomes.

(00:57:03):
So,

(00:57:04):
yeah,

(00:57:04):
we want to situate this in the forensic sector and have police watch the videos and

(00:57:08):
just see whether there is any prejudice there.

(00:57:11):
Hopefully there won't be.

(00:57:13):
But if there is, just knowing what's happening and why to be able to tackle that.

(00:57:18):
That sounds really cool.

(00:57:23):
Thank you.

(00:57:25):
Yeah, very clear plan.

(00:57:27):
And at some point,

(00:57:28):
are you wanting to put this into the big,

(00:57:31):
big,

(00:57:31):
big picture is long term is putting this into some sort of public policy or more

(00:57:35):
awareness or whatnot.

(00:57:37):
Do you think you plan on doing that at some point?

(00:57:39):
yeah definitely um you know they take they take a long time don't they and you need

(00:57:43):
a big evidence base um but thankfully so when i started the phd there was really

(00:57:48):
only maybe one paper in this um there's still not that many more but there are more

(00:57:53):
people are um coming to the field and working so we are developing an evidence base

(00:57:58):
But yeah,

(00:57:58):
hopefully with what we find in the PhD and potentially postdoc in the forensic

(00:58:02):
sector,

(00:58:03):
working with Autistica,

(00:58:04):
with autism charities to create a public policy briefing and get this through

(00:58:09):
government and the justice system to try and make that much needed change that we

(00:58:15):
want,

(00:58:15):
the autistic community want,

(00:58:16):
but also that legal professionals,

(00:58:18):
they express a want and a need for it too.

(00:58:22):
So it's something that everyone needs and wants.

(00:58:23):
So yeah, hopefully one day that's the aim.

(00:58:27):
Hopefully you get there.

(00:58:29):
Beth, any final questions from you?

(00:58:31):
No, that was my last question.

(00:58:32):
That was great.

(00:58:33):
Thank you.

(00:58:34):
Awesome.

(00:58:35):
Well,

(00:58:35):
Tegan,

(00:58:35):
there's another question which we ask everybody who comes on,

(00:58:38):
and that is if you had one piece of advice for all our listeners from your

(00:58:43):
experience,

(00:58:44):
what would it be?

(00:58:44):
Oh my gosh, that's a very broad question.

(00:58:49):
It is.

(00:58:49):
As in like general advice.

(00:58:51):
Yeah.

(00:58:54):
What would I say?

(00:58:58):
I'd say this might be a bit of a cliche answer but I'd say focus on finding the

(00:59:04):
little tiny bits of joy that we can in sort of every day you know we turn the news

(00:59:09):
on and there's a lot of a lot of problems and negative news in the world but there

(00:59:15):
are little bits of joy I think that you can find every day my partner sometimes

(00:59:19):
says I'm like a child like I'll get excited if a dog walks past or you know

(00:59:23):
something really small but I just think

(00:59:26):
why not you know we we often wait for holidays or big events for joy and it's there

(00:59:32):
every day if we look for it so yeah i'd say just focusing on remembering the joy in

(00:59:37):
the little things awesome i think that's really nice advice yeah we should find a

(00:59:43):
bit of joy well there you go after the podcast guys go and go and find a bit of joy

(00:59:48):
today there's a bit of sun out there i'm going to go for a little walk i think

(00:59:52):
there we go some vitamin d

(00:59:55):
All right.

(00:59:55):
Sounds good.

(00:59:56):
So everybody, Beth's going to go for a walk.

(00:59:58):
It's not very sunny in Glasgow,

(01:00:00):
so I'm not going to do that,

(01:00:01):
but I'll find some other way for joy.

(01:00:06):
But until then, thank you everybody for listening.

(01:00:08):
Thanks again, Tegan, for coming on.

(01:00:09):
No, thank you for the invite.

(01:00:12):
Thanks, Beth, for co-hosting.

(01:00:13):
Thank you everybody for listening.

(01:00:15):
And until next time, take care.

(01:00:17):
Bye.

(01:00:18):
Take care.

(01:00:18):
Bye.

(01:00:19):
Thank you.

(01:00:19):
Bye.