Zooming into a PhD, the final episode: A conversation with Devyn Glass

By the Sussex Hive Scholars

We, Aanchal, Devyn and Louise, are this year's Hive Scholars. With support from SAGE, we have been working all year to foster a research community at the University of Sussex (especially during lockdown!). But we are also using our frequent Zoom meetings to learn about each other’s research, and we want to share our conversations with the SAGE community.

In this series of conversations, we will introduce ourselves, our research and report on how COVID-19 and lockdown has impacted our work. In the final part of this series, Devyn talks to Aanchal and Louise about synchrony in Autism Spectrum Conditions, a new side project, and disruptions to school research.

Aanchal: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Devyn: I am a PhD student in the School of Psychology at Sussex. I work in the Children and Technology Lab and I'm in the final year of my PhD. I am just about to go on an intermission for four or five months to work on a separate project in the same lab, which is very exciting.

Aanchal: What is your PhD research?

Devyn: My PhD research is on interpersonal synchrony in Autism Spectrum Conditions. I'm looking at synchrony between autistic peers compared to neuro-typical peers, and whether synchrony increases over time between young autistic adults and their learning support workers.

By synchrony, I mean how we move together in time. So, humans have a natural tendency to synchronise their body movements, which can be big, obvious movements, like meeting each other for a high five or handshake but also all kinds of micro-level movements like head nods or bodies sways.

Louise: So, that's that's what you mean by synchrony, okay. You're looking at that in autism?

Devyn: Yes, some research so far has said has shown that autistic people differ in the way they synchronise with other people and many authors conclude that synchrony is lower, when one person in a dyad is autistic compared to when two neurotypical people interact.

However, a lot of research compares mixed dyads, so a dyad with an autistic and a neuro-typical person, to two neurotypical people. Some theories indicate that communication can break down when we interact with someone of a different neuro-type. So, an interpersonal mismatch could result in lower synchrony in mixed dyads.

Louise: That’s really interesting. I know you have been collecting data at schools. So, how has your data collection been impacted over the past few months?

Devyn: Well, even before the lockdown it could be tricky. Recruiting schools can be difficult. Everyone is so busy. Luckily, I was able to work with a fantastic school and college locally, but my research was cut short because of Covid.

In the study where I was looking at synchrony between young adults and their learning support workers, I was looking at change over time. We wanted to take into account the aspect of rapport and we use technology as kind of a vessel to study synchrony between two people. We're interested in how the game itself supports synchrony and whether this can influence synchrony over time as well.

I ended up cutting the time points in half, unfortunately. So, I will use the data that I have for my thesis and it should be enough, but it's not quite what we wanted it to be.

Louise: I'm interested to hear about that game, but before we get to that I wanted to ask how many studies you are planning to do?

Devyn: I did a systematic review to start with, looking at synchrony in autism to pull out where the differences lie in different tasks and with different dyad types. So I’m just preparing that for publication. Then I've got the two empirical studies.

Louise: How are you measuring synchrony?

Devyn: We're using a method called Motion Energy Analysis. So, we video two participants playing a game side-by-side and the MEA programme reduces the pixels, then it looks at each frame in the video and detects motion in areas of interest that you pre-define, like comparing one person’s head movement to another person’s head movement. Then you can import the data into something like R to calculate cross correlations in the movement.

Aanchal: Awesome, I remember you mentioned that you were learning to code!

Louise: This sounds like a great opportunity for you to explain the game.

Devyn: Sure. We're using a game called Connect that was developed in the lab. It is a dual-tablet game, so each partner has their own device to play on, but they connect together over Wi Fi and they sort pictures into categories together.

The pictures have to match their partners in terms of location on a grid, but they also have to work together to figure out how to group them together. One pair of young people had Super Mario characters and Scratch characters and they had to put them into those two groups. It's simple but effective in supporting awareness of a partner and contingent behaviours, and as they have a device each, they can move their pictures at the same time, which can support simultaneous motion.

Aanchal: Are there any other big obstacles created because of Covid that that you have had, and perhaps overcome?

Devyn: I think just the elements of changing to working at home and not having the same degree of support. I miss bouncing ideas off of others and the opportunities to collaborate, those corridor conversations seem to be really important. Maintaining the same level of work has been so difficult because of my working environment, and noise. Lots of noise! Although, it has definitely got easier as time has gone on.

Louise: What do you really hope to accomplish with your PhD? Do you have any plans about how you can use it?

Devyn: I'd like to stay in research after my PhD and I think I have an array of studies that give me good experience. The project that I'm working on during intermission is connected to my PhD research as well, so that will help. At the same time, I'm open to industry jobs. The technology side of my work could lead on to roles in User Research or something along those lines, which I’m also interested in.

Louise: Okay, so what about applications of your research to real life?

Devyn: Well, a lot of research takes a deficit approach to autism and synchrony - the autistic person isn't synchronising with somebody else. But synchrony is an aspect of a relationship, so lower synchrony might have something to do with the interaction. So, I think it could lead on to some changes in the way that we think about autism.

Louise: And just quickly, what’s the new project that you're working on?

Devyn: The new project is is funded by the NIHR and we're comparing online versus face-to-face therapeutic interventions, particularly an intervention called Video Interaction Guidance. So we're going to look at attunement in the interaction, which links to the synchrony aspect of my PhD.

Aanchal: Is this due to Covid-related changes?

Devyn: Yes. So many practitioners are having to deliver interventions online, so we have Covid-specific funding to compare face-to-face and online interactions.

Aanchal: That's really cool.

Devyn: It's been fun to start a new project now that I have got a handle on working through this pandemic!