Research Themes

The full breadth of Kelsey’s research can be found on the publications page, or her google scholar page. The following subsections outline some of her key lines of inquiry with exemplar papers.

Self Transformation in Matrescence

The transition to motherhood (‘matrescence’; and more broadly, to parenthood) is often described by those who have lived through it as transformative – not only for one’s body and social role, but also for one’s sense of who they are. In this research stream, I use empirical methods to study the sense of self, and understand which aspects of the self change in matrescence, what the cognitive mechanisms are that underly these changes, and how we can better support parents through the associated psychological shifts.

Key Papers:

Self and Agency as a Transdiagnostic Feature

My research shows that the sense of self is related to multiple mental health conditions, and not just the ones that are defined by self-related symptoms in the ICD-10 or DSM-5. This points to the potential power of measuring the sense of self to better understand the commonalities and differences of mental wellbeing, mental conditions, and mental disease, as they relate to who we think we are and how we build and maintain this perception of ourselves.

Key Papers:

Sense of Agency and Prediction Error

Predictive Processing theories of the brain suggest that the function of the brain is to minimise the differences between what it senses and what it expects by building an internal model of the world, and the self in the world (see also Bayesian Brain, Active Inference, Predictive Coding). In this line of research, I try to understand how prediction errors – differences between what you expect and what you sense – can drive perceptions of agency – whether or not one has control over their sensations. My findings suggest that the sense of agency is related to minimisation of prediction error, and policy selection (what you choose to do in the face of prediction error) is related to mental health phenotypes (e.g. autism).

Key Papers:

The Self in Autism

Theories suggesting the sense of self might differ in autism spectrum conditions have historically been driven by deficit views of autism (e.g. that autistic people are deficient in social processing, which extends to poorer understanding of oneself). In this line of research, I take a sensory and cognitive perspective on the sense of self to understand how autistic individuals build and maintain a sense of self and how this differs from the neurotypical case, in ways that create an authentically autistic self, rather than a deficient one. My findings so far suggest that individuals with more autistic traits act earlier to reduce uncertainty about who they are, which may result from a self-model with less hierarchical depth, but more resources at lower, sensory parts of the cognitive hierarchy.

Key Papers:

(Philosophy of) Interdisciplinary Science

My research programme is highly interdisciplinary. I have training in neuroscience, experimental psychology and analytic philosophy, but also work alongside psychiatrists, education researchers, audiologists, speech pathologists, and statisticians. This interdisciplinarity makes me particularly interested in ways of improving cross-disciplinary conversation, and developing language and theories that are truly interdisciplinary. While commonly endorsed by grant bodies and institutions as a good thing to do, true interdisciplinary work is difficult to achieve. This line of research directly addresses methodological benefits of interdisciplinary work.

Key Papers: