Geoff brings with him experience in cognitive neuroscience, autism research, and policy advising. He returns here to UCL where – a while back – he did his PhD with Cecilia Heyes, exploring the mechanisms of imitation. Following this, he joined the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), working with Chris and Uta Frith on autism research, employing fMRI to study attentional modulation, executive functions, empathy, and more in autistic adults.
At ICN, he also collaborated with Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on theory of mind and social emotions across adolescence, and with Tania Singer on the neural basis of empathy and fairness. Geoff then moved to the Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution (ELSE), continuing his work on imitation and decision-making in neurotypical and autistic adults with Cecilia Heyes. After a year advising the UK government on science policy, he joined Birkbeck’s Department of Psychological Sciences, before transitioning to the MRC SGDP Centre at IoPPN. Here, Geoff broadened his work on autism to include Alexithymia and interoception, continuing this research at Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology with a Tutorial Fellowship at Brasenose College.
He now divides his time between Oxford and UCL, continuing research and contribution to the field.
Recent publications
Journal articles
- Lloyd, A., Fearon, P., Martin, P., Law, R., Lucas, L., Wu, T., Midgley, N., Steinbeis, N., Veenstra, R., Smith, J., Deighton, J., Bird, G., Plans, D., Ly, L., & Viding, E. (2026). A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial of a Transdiagnostic Preventative Mental Health Intervention for Adolescents: Building Resilience through Socioemotional Training (ReSET).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/kjuae_v1 - Pounder, Z., Stantić, M., Reeder, R., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2026). Individuals with aphantasia show independent impairments in face perception and face memory, but not face matching. Cortex, 202, 157–164.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2026.06.002 - Payne, B., Bird, G., & Catmur, C. (2025). Feedback on Mental State Inferences Improves Accuracy and Awareness. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17470218251404419–17470218251404419.
https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218251404419 - Stantić, M., Pounder, Z., Bate, S., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2025). Individuals who are ‘super recognisers’ show superior performance on independent measures of face perception, face memory, and face matching. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32(6), 3276–3285.
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02627-9 - Murphy, J. & Bird, G. (2025). How might interoceptive accuracy training work?. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 172, 106126–106126.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106126 - Akbulut, C. & Bird, G. (2025). Who Tweets for the autistic community? A natural language processing–driven investigation. Autism, 29(7), 1740–1753.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613251325934 - Lloyd, A., Law, R., Midgley, N., Wu, T., Lucas, L., Atkinson, E., Steinbeis, N., Martin, P., Veenstra, R., Smith, J., Ly, L., Bird, G., Murphy, J., Plans, D., Munafò, M. R., Penton‐Voak, I. S., Deighton, J., Richards, K., Richards, M., Fearon, P., & Viding, E. (2025). A feasibility study of a preventative, transdiagnostic intervention for mental health problems in adolescence: building resilience through socioemotional training (ReSET). Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 19(1), 29–29.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-025-00870-z - Adams, K. L., Jonahs, S., Mary, B., Bird, G., & Waite, P. (2025). Experiences of interoception and anxiety in autistic adolescents: A reflexive thematic analysis. Autism, 29(6), 1585–1596.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613251314595 - Yorke, I., Murphy, J., Rijsdijk, F., Colvert, E., Lietz, S., Happé, F., & Bird, G. (2025). Alexithymia may explain the genetic relationship between autism and sensory sensitivity. Translational Psychiatry, 15(1), 75–75.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03254-1 - Long, E. L., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2025). The theory of mind hypothesis of autism: A critical evaluation of the status quo. Psychological Review, 133(4), 1006–1024.
https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000532 - Ichijo, E., Lee, K. S., Stantić, M., Castro, I., Murphy, J., Vafeiadou, A., Banissy, M. J., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2025). Failure to account for psychiatric symptoms: Implications for the replicability and generalizability of psychological science?. Psychological Medicine, 55, e367–e367.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291725102237 - Bird, G. (2024). The enduring importance of the “fine cuts” approach to psychology: EPS Mid-Career Award Lecture 2024. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(4), 641–646.
https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218241311291 - Long, E. L., Catmur, C., Fleming, S. M., & Bird, G. (2024). Metacognition facilitates theory of mind through optimal weighting of trait inferences. Cognition, 256, 106042–106042.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106042 - Spooner, R. L., Bird, J. M., Clemente, R., Izagirre, N. I., Fueyo, E. F., Watling, D., Plans, D., Brewer, R., Bird, G., & Murphy, J. (2024). No differences between remote and laboratory-based testing of cardiac interoceptive accuracy using the phase adjustment task. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 28524–28524.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-79125-4
Preprints
- Steinbeis, N., Midgley, N., Smith, J., Lloyd, A., Viding, E., Martin, P., Lucas, L., Plans, D., Veenstra, R., Law, R., Ly, L., Wu, T. (.-H., Bird, G., Deighton, J., & Fearon, P. (2026). A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial of a Transdiagnostic Preventative Mental Health Intervention for Adolescents: Building Resilience through Socioemotional Training (ReSET). PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints).
- Palmer, R. A., Morelli, D., Plans, D., Todd, J., Aspell, J. E., Leganes‐Fonteneau, M., Bird, G., & Murphy, J. (2025). Evidence for Cardiac Phase-Linked Perception of Heartbeats. Psychophysiology, 63(6), e70346–e70346.
https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70346 - Murphy, J. & Bird, G. (2025). How Might Interoceptive Accuracy Training Work?.
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/gph7n_v2